By Lonnie Turner
The Dillon Wildcats took advantage of turnovers by mistake-prone Brookland-Cayce Friday evening at Memorial Stadium to up-end the Bearcats from the Columbia area in their quest for the Lower State Championship and earned another trip to play at Williams-Brice Stadium. The opponent, Chapman, is well known by the coaching staff and Dillon fans as the team that kept the Wildcats out of the South Carolina rule book last year with a 29-27 victory that would have been five straight State Titles for Dillon.
The opportunistic Wildcats turned a pair of pass interceptions and a fumble recovery into 21 points on the way to the victory over Brookland Cayce. The Cats took and early lead, driving 52 yards on their opening possession to take a 7-0 lead on the strength of a touchdown run by Zareon Hayes out of the Wildcat formation, but from that point, the Cats scored three times in the second quarter and never looked back as they completely throttled the Bearcats, 42-7. The Bearcats lost two of five fumbles and both quarterbacks threw one pass interceptions each to run that total to a record-breaking 26 for the Cat defense for the year, with Ty’Quan Porter at the top of the list with 10 picks.
Jadarius McDaniel went high in the air at the Bearcat 41 yard line
to come down with a Reed Charpia pass on a first down play and ran it all the way back to the 11 before being stopped. On the first play following the pick, Corrian Wright dodged his way into the end-zone for his first of three rushing touchdowns and added a fourth score just one possession later when he caught a pass over the middle from Jay Lester and outran the opposition for a 56-yard touchdown and a 21-7 score. The dust had no more cleared before Bearcat return man, Keylin Roach, coughed up the ball after a 39-yard return of the ensuing kick-off to the B-C 46. Four plays later, Wright was in the end-zone for the third time with a 12-yard run and a Wildcat 28-7 lead. Reserve B-C quarterback, Malachi Brown, who was in the game after Charpia was carried off the field by a couple of teammates with a sprained ankle, had just moments earlier put the Bearcats on the scoreboard with a 10-yard run.
The turnover bug, another interception, this time by Shamar McCollum, gave the Cats another chance to take a four touchdown lead. Playing from his outside linebacker position, McCollum went high to knock down the pass, but caught the ball, tuned up field and went 32 yards before being stopped at the B-C 5. Wright scored on the first offensive play and the Wildcats coasted from there. McCollum barely missed another chance for a second interception a few downs later.
The final score came on a 66-yard sustained drive near the end of the third and beginning of the fourth quarter. Taking over at the Dillon 36, the Wildacts got long runs from Jalen Williams and Wright on the nine play drive and once they got into the red-zone, Hayes ran his second “Wildcat” touchdown four seconds into the fourth quarter.
The Bearcats were held to minus 16 yards in the second half and Brown completed 7 of 11 pass attempts for 58 yards to go along with 67 yards on six out of 10 pass completions.
The Wildcats used a balancedd attack with 163 yards rushing and Jay Lester was 7 of eight pass attempts for 130 yards. Jalen Williams led the offense with 74 yards on 11 carries and Wright had 55 net yards on 7 carries. Llester, when he wasn’t accurately throwing the ball carried five times for 39 yards.
The homefolks were plentiful in the Wildcat stands and the Brookland-Cayce faithful had a great crowd following the Bearcats from the Columbia area.
Advance tickets for the state championship game go on sale on Tuesday, November 28, at 8:00 a.m. at the Dillon High School office.