Manning's Kennedy happy with direction of football program
Monarchs close out season with 7-4 record
Manning – The end of the season didn’t go anywhere close to what the Manning High School football team had hoped. After opening the season with seven straight victories, the Monarchs lost three of their final four games, including a 48-22 decision to Philip Simmons on November 3 in the first round of the AAA state playoffs.
Despite going out on such a note, MHS head coach Reggie Kennedy believes the program is moving in the right direction with what it has done over the past two seasons.
“This team is a little ahead of schedule,” said Kennedy, who led the Monarchs to a 9-3 record last year after it worked its way back from being adversely affected by the coronavirus pandemic. “I feel like we’re moving in the right direction. “Back in the spring if you would have told me we would start the way we did, I wouldn't have believed you. We continued to find a way to win this season.”
Each of the Monarchs’ five non-region victories this season came against schools which are in classifications lower than Manning’s AAA. Still, Manning won each of those games in comfortable fashion.
The Monarchs opened play in Region 7 with a 28-24 triumph over Aynor. They followed that up with a 40-13 shellacking of Georgetown.
That set up a showdown against Dillon, which was ranked second in the High School Sports Report AAA Sweet poll. Manning ranked ninth heading into the contest, hung with the Wildcats through the middle of the third quarter before they pulled away for a 47-22 victory.
The Monarchs had another big game the following week against Loris to decide who would get the No. 2 seed from the region and the home game in the first round of the state playoffs that went with it. Loris came away with a 41-0 victory.
Kennedy said it was just one of those nights for his team.
“We just didn't play well,” the veteran head coach said. “The fact that the game was played on Thursday (because of weather concerns on Friday) didn’t help us. We had a few guys out.
“It's one of those things. It was a night where we could do nothing right.”
The Monarchs rebounded with a 48-43 win over Waccamaw to finish third in the region with a 3-2 mark.
Manning’s offense revolved around its ability to run the football all season. The Monarchs relied mainly on senior running back Triston Thames, junior running back Jaylnn Coard and junior quarterback JaRae Mitchell.
Going into the playoff game against Philip Simmons, Thames was leading the way with 825 yards and six touchdowns on 128 carries.
Coard, the 6-foot-2-inch, 290-pound noseguard on defense who got most of his carries when the Monarchs neared or reached the red zone, averaged over eight yards per carry. Coard had 74 carries for 617 yards and 15 touchdowns. He also ran for 15 2-point conversions for 105 total points.
Mitchell, who was in his first season starting at quarterback, had 69 carries for 293 yards and three touchdowns.
“We're going to run the football,” Kennedy said. “We’re not real flashy with the spread stuff. What we do is fit our kids in with what we do.
“One thing we’ve been able to do all year is run the football. Us being able to do that allowed me to control the flow and tempo of the game. A good offense is your best defense. We tried to get ahead and stay ahead.”
Kennedy spoke all season about how much the offensive line improved from the spring as the season progressed. That didn’t change. The line was made up of senior Jeremy Blanding (6-1, 249 at left tackle, senior Javon Murray (6-2, 280) at left guard, Semaj Rankins-Bush at center, Darrell Gamble at right guard and senior Jamon Brock (6-4, 280) at right tackle.
Mitchell had his ups and downs throwing the football. He completed 68 of 114 passes for 863 yards and nine touchdowns while tossing seven interceptions.
Junior Jeffrey Ceasar was Mitchell’s top target. Ceasar had 31 catches for 447 yards and four touchdowns. Senior Jamari Wilson had 16 catches for 235 yards and three touchdowns, while Thames had 11 catches out of the backfield for 97 yards and a touchdown.
Wilson and Ceasar were a dynamic duo returning kicks. Entering the playoff game, Wilson had returned three kickoffs for touchdowns and was averaging 35.4 a return on nine attempts. Ceasar had six kickoff returns, two of them going back for scores, and was averaging 37.2 yards per return.
“I tell you right now, he loves returning kicks,” Kennedy said of Ceasar, who returned a kickoff for 96 yards and a touchdown against Waccamaw. “He and Jamari Wilson are like a 2-headed monster. They give us a short field so many times.
“Every time Jeffrey touches the football on a kickoff or punt return, he has a chance to break. it. I’m glad they decided to kick it to him.”
Manning’s leading tacklers entering the playoff game were linebackers Lamar Hilton, Jontavious Canty and Daquan McFadden. Hilton had 91 tackles and 9 ½ tackles for loss, Canty had 87 tackles and 7 ½ tackles for loss, and McFadden had 50 tackles and 5 ½ tackles for loss. Coard had 38 tackles and eight tackles for loss.
McFadden had two interceptions, returning one of them for 47 yards and a TD. Ceasar and Wilson were big playmakers on defense as well. Wilson had 21 tackles and a team high four interceptions, while Ceasar had 36 tackles and three interceptions.
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