Crestwood uses one Moore card in 34-28 victory over Camden

          Camden – The Crestwood High School football team may have been 7-1 on the season entering its game against Camden for the Region 6-AAA championship on Friday, but Knights head coach Roosevelt Nelson had yet to use all the cards in his deck.

         And boy, what a card he pulled out at Zemp Stadium.

         Seneca Moore, who had all of six carries coming into the contest, had nine carries for 133 yards and two touchdowns to help the Knights to a 34-28 victory and snap the Bulldogs’ string of region championships at four.

         “That’s something we held in our back pocket for a while,” said Nelson, whose team wrapped up the region’s No. 1 seed in the state playoffs and the two home games that go with it. “We wanted to hold it until it really, really mattered. We practiced it quite often in practice, but we waited until tonight before we used it in a game.”

         The Knights, ranked seventh in the High School Sports Report AAA Sweet 16 poll after improving to 4-0 in region play, can win the region title outright with a home victory over Sumter County rival Lakewood next week. Eighth-ranked Camden, which fell to 6-3 overall and 3-1 in the region, has the No. 2 seed and the first-round home game that goes with it locked up heading into next week’s regular-season finale on the road against Marlboro County.

         It’s great, it feels great,” Nelson said. “To go into an environment like this and win against a team like Camden, and to win a championship-round game, it speaks to my coaches, my players, my support staff and all that they do.”

         Moore, a senior outside linebacker who was announced as a selection to the Touchstone Energy Cooperatives Bowl all-star game this week, said Crestwood paid extra attention to him running the football as it prepared for the showdown.

“We had to come out here and run something different against Camden,” said Moore, who is in his first season with the Knights after transferring from Lakewood. “They run a good scheme, so this week in practice we put in the package called “Heavy.” We just came out and put all of the pieces together, and we happened to run the ball good, and I happened to run the ball good.”

Nelson, who won his first region championship in his ninth year as the head coach at his alma mater, didn’t even tip his hand with Moore in the early going. Moore’s first carry didn’t come until late in the first half, but it was a big one.

 The game was tied 7-7 with the Knights facing third down and seven yards to go at the Camden 29-yard line Moore took the handoff from quarterback Javion Martin and darted around his left end for a 23-yard gain to the 6. That set up a 5-yard scoring run by running back Azarian Yates two plays later, and placekicker Jorge Hernandez added the extra point to make it 14-7 with 27 seconds remaining in the second quarter.

 Crestwood didn’t go into the half with the lead, however. Camden’s Jo Jo Crim received the ensuing kickoff at his 15 along the Crestwood sideline. He came back to his right and faked a handoff to Jah Mayrant. He turned up the field along the Camden sideline with a couple of key blocks springing him and broke back to the middle of the field for an 85-yard TD return. Max Ford added the extra point with eight seconds left to make the halftime score 14-14.

 “That was big time,” said Bulldogs head coach Brian Rimpf. “Our offense wasn’t as efficient as we would have liked it to be in the first half. Jo Jo Crim is a great player, he’s a difference maker. He certainly made a difference on that play.”

 And that was almost like stealing a possession for Camden as it received the second-half kickoff. Aiden Heriot grabbed the pooch kick at his 30 and returned it to the Crestwood 48. Quarterback Grayson White connected with Mayrant for 21 yards on first down before running back Averee Hickmon went nine yards to the 18.

White then threw a pass in the flat to Mayrant, who juked a defender and raced into the end zone for a touchdown just 1 minute, 13 seconds, into the second half. White ran for the 2-point conversion and Camden led 22-14 with 10:47 left in the third quarter.

 The Bulldogs were in a position to fully swing the momentum when they came through with a three-downs-and-out series, forcing Crestwood to punt. However, Camden ran into Knights punter Timothy Tye. The resulting personal foul gave Crestwood a first down at the Bulldogs 47.

“Honestly, that counts as a turnover,” Rimpf said.

 The Knights drove to a first down at the 12. They turned the ball over on downs when Yates was stopped for no gain at the 3 on fourth and one.

 The Bulldogs could only get three yards before having to punt. It took over at the Camden 42, and Martin connected with wide receiver Jeremie Richardson for 26 yards on first down. A 10-yard run by Moore on second down led to a first and goal at the 2.

Moore scored on the next play. A pass play on the 2-point conversion was no good, leaving Camden up 22-20 with 1:38 left in the third quarter.

Nelson was pleased, but not surprised, with the way his team kept battling when the momentum had seemingly swung Camden’s way.

“We’ve played some really good teams, so we’re battle-tested,” Nelson said. “Our guys kind of fought through it. Camden is a good team. They’re going to make some plays. We just made more of them.”

 The next “play” for Crestwood came early in the fourth quarter. White was scrambling with the football when the Knights’ Brandon Cowell knocked the ball from White’s grasp, and teammate Da’shan Scriven recovered at the Camden 48.

Martin connected with Richardson for 10 yards and later scrambled 10 yards for a first down at the 15. Moore followed with a 5-yard run before going in for the score from 10 yards out on the next play.

Hernandez added the extra point to give the Knights a 27-22 lead with 7:07 remaining in the game.

Camden had to punt after three plays on its ensuing possession, but Heriot got off a 57-yard punt, forcing the Knights to start from their 19.

A pass interference call against the Bulldogs on the first play moved Crestwood to a first down at the 34. Before another play could be ran, however, both teams were sent to their respective locker rooms because of a lightning delay with 5:23 left in the game.

A storm and lightning skirted Zemp Stadium, leading to a 52-minute delay. When play resumed, Moore got the handoff on the first play and raced around his right end for a 58-yard gain to the Camden 8.

Nelson said the play was called before the game was delayed by the weather. The almost 1-hour wait didn’t deter the Knights from sticking with the original call.

         “We kind of wanted to get it before it (the delay) happened to try and put it away,” Nelson said. “We just stuck with it after we came back out, and it worked pretty good.”

After a 7-yard run by Martin, Yates went in from a yard out on the next play for his third touchdown of the game. Hernandez’s PAT made it 34-22 with 4:18 to go.

The Bulldogs didn’t waste too much time getting in the end zone as White threw a 17-yard TD pass to Ford, who added the PAT to make it 34-28 with 2:58 left.

 Camden got the ball back one more time when Crestwood turned the ball over on downs at the Bulldog 22 with 1:07 to go and no timeouts. Any hopes of a miraculous comeback were immediately squashed when White was intercepted by Khalil Moody on the first play. That set off a raucous celebration on the Knights sideline.

“The bottom line is we made more mistakes than they did, we committed more turnovers,” said Rimpf, whose Bulldogs had two turnovers to one for Crestwood. “They made less mistakes than us. When it comes down to these games against good teams, the one that makes less mistakes wins.

“I guess one thing I’m going to like taking away from this is that it wasn’t a playoff game. It had the feel of a playoff game, but we get to go play next week and start the playoffs in two weeks. We have a lot that we can work on, a lot we can get better at.”

 Crestwood finished with 272 yards. Yates rushed for 117 yards, 86 of it coming in the first half, on 34 carries. Martin, the senior 4-year starter Shrine Bowl quarterback, only threw the ball 13 times, completing eight of them for 142 yards.

Nelson was pleased with how his team handled what Camden threw at it defensively.

“There are some things they do in the secondary that took away some from us,” Nelson said. “I think Azarian Yates is one of the better running backs in the state, and when he gets going there isn’t much that’s going to stop him.

“The offensive line did a great job. We spent all week trying to get in their heads that they needed to control the game up front, and I think that’s what they did tonight.”

         Moore said he and his teammates aren’t anywhere close to being satisfied with what they’ve accomplished to date.

         “We’re trying to go all the way, we want to go to state,” he said. “We need to keep working in practice and doing what we’re doing.”

         White completed 11 of 23 passes for 163 yards and the three touchdowns. Heriot had three catches for 38 yards and a score, Mayrant six for 81 yards and a TD and Ford two for 44 yards and a touchdown.

         Photos from the Crestwood vs Camden game at end of this story.

          High resolution prints and digital downloads from this event are available at www.LarryGamble.com or by clicking this link.