By Lonnie Turner
“Welcome to Dillon Wildcat football” was the statement from the Cats to the Fighting Rebels of Strom Thurmond High School in Friday night’s opening round of the State 3A playoffs. The Wildcats jumped on the Rebels with 21 points in the first quarter barely before the smoke from the “Tunnel Crew” could settle on the way to a 35-7 thumping.
The Nasty Cat defense held star running back Jaquan Edwards and the rest of the Rebel offense to three and out after taking the opening kick-off. Not until the fourth quarter did the Dillon defensive line allow the talented senior, who had scored 18 touchdowns this season, get the Rebels on the scoreboard. With 1600 yards under his belt for the season, the Cats, led by linebackers Shamar McCollum (14 tackles and 1-1/2 sacks) and Dray Thompson (12 tackles) held him to 75 yards rushing on 17 carries before he broke loose for a 28-yard touchdown with eight minutes remaining in the game to the delight of North Carolina State coaches in the stands, who were in town looking at him.
Jalen Williams increased his rushing total to 1,227 yards and scored two more touchdowns to get that number up to 15 for the season. He scored the first 6 points of the game with a 12-yard scamper up the middle and gave the Cats a four touchdown lead with a second quarter one-yard dash four minutes from intermission.
Lester combined with Ty’Quan Porter for an 11-yard TD pass just ten seconds from the end of the third quarter and Ahmad Dawad was perfect on the night with his five PAT attempts.
Like so many times this season, the Dillon defense put points on the scoreboard. Zareon Hayes scooped up a fumble by Rebel quarterback Jaquan Harris at the ST 35 and ran it into the end-zone untouched for the third score of the game.
The Wildcat offense racked up 287 yards on the ground and Lester threw for 68 more to give the Cats 355 total yards while the Dillon defense limited the Rebels to 156 rushing and only 33 passing.
Dillon will be at home again Friday as they host the Bishops from Bishop England High School of the Charleston area. The two schools have faced each other only one time before with the Wildcats winning 31-17 in the first round of the 2A State play-offs in 2010