By Lonnie Turner
The Strom Thurmond Rebels (6-4) will be in Dillon (10-0) Friday evening for the opening round of the Lower State Class 3A play-offs. It will be the fourth trip to Dillon for teams out of Strom Thurmond and the fifth time overall that teams from the two schools will have met in the state play-offs. The Wildcats have won all three games at home and the Rebels won on their home field.”
“They are a good team,” said Dillon coach Jackie Hayes. “They had a lot of injuries earlier in the year, but all the players are back and ready for the play-offs. They have great line play, both offensively and defensively. They really should be 9-1 instead of 6-4. We’ve got our work cut out for us for sure!”
The Rebels lost a 28-21 heart breaking thriller to Gilbert, the number two team in class 3A as of October 30. In a loss to Swansea by a single point, the Rebels have lost the other two games by a combined total of 22 points, losing 34-21 to North Augusta and 26-17 to Greenwood. Their most lopsided score was a 52-14 win over Region foe, Pelion.
One of the reasons the Rebels are so potent in their rushing game is senior running back Jaquan Edwards. The 5’11” 213 pounder has carried the football 226 times during the first ten games for a total of 1,607 yards, or 23 times per game for a 7.1 yards average and has scored 18 touchdowns. Other running backs to carry the ball 40 times or more are the quarterback, Jaquan Harris, who has totaled only 168 yards on 46 carries and completed 61% of his 78 pass attempts for 651 yards. Tyreek Williams, who filled in at quarterback averaged 6.1 yards a carry on 67 rushing attempts and threw for only 123 yards.
On the other hand when Dillon has the football, they will depend on a bevy of running backs, including Jalen Williams, who even though missing two games with an injury, has still rushed for over 1,000 yards. Also for the Cats will be Zareon Hayes and quarterback Jay Lester carrying the mail. Hayes missed two games, but still has scored ten TDS while racking up 379 yards, mostly from the Wildcat formation. Corrian Wright and Isiah Benjamin substitue often with 200 or more yards. Lester is completing nearly 60 percent of his passes and has thrown for 1200 yards and 14 touchdowns. Wide receivers Ty Johnson and Williams have nearly 400 apiece through the air and have 7 touchdowns to their credit. For the Wildcats, Ty Rogers, Ahmari Huggins-Bruce, Ty’Quan Porter, Williams and Wright have caught a combined total of seventy-five passes for 1,009 yards and 12 touchdowns. The Dillon defense is led by Dray Thompson with 76 tackles and Shamar McCollum is second on the list and leads the 8-man “Sack Pack” with 7 quarterback sacks. The Sack Pack has recorded 24 for the season and the defensive secondary has picked off opposing QBs 19 times with Porter topping the list with 9 interceptions, returning two of them for touchdowns.
It should be one of the better games of the year if both teams play up to their potential. Get here early this week, because the crowd from Columbia will be following their 3A representative down here to the low country in force!