Sumter holds on to beat AA No. 2 Oceanside Collegiate 17-10
Gamecocks jump out to 17-0 lead on the way to snapping 2-game losing streak
Sumter – The Sumter High School football team found itself in some uncharted territory under head coach Mark Barnes.
The Gamecocks had suffered two regular-season losses in one year only twice in his first eight seasons. Losses of 27-21 to Crestwood in double overtime and 47-10 to Summerville the last two weeks made it three in nine years. The consecutive losses is where the uncharted came into play. SHS had never lost two games in a row under Barnes.
With a matchup with defending AA state runner-up Oceanside Collegiate Academy, which beat Sumter 28-0 last year, awaiting on Friday, Barnes wasn’t quite sure what to expect from his team. What he got was a 17-10 triumph from the Gamecocks on Sumter Memorial Stadium’s Freddie Solomon Field.
“I’m happy tonight because we got a win over a quality opponent,” said Barnes, whose Gamecocks improved to 4-2 on the season. “Our back was against the wall. We haven't lost two games in the regular season in a while (since 2017), and we haven't lost two in a row in a long time (since 2014, the year before Barnes arrived), and to think of losing three in a row was a tough thought.”
SHS, which came into the game ranked 12th in the High School Sports Report Sweet 16 AAAAA poll after being third two weeks ago, had a great defensive performance. The Gamecocks limited the 3-2 Landsharks, who are ranked second in AA this season, to 249 yards of total offense and came up with three interceptions.
“I take my hat off to our defense,” Barnes said. “Our defense has been a question mark for us, but we handled their physicality at the line of scrimmage. We played a lot of snaps in the second half, but we won in a way I didn't think we could win to be honest with you.
“Our defense held the line when we needed them to,” he added. Our defense needed to play good tonight because it hadn't played good the last couple of weeks."
SHS came out of the gate fast. Jamirh Bey took the opening kickoff at the Sumter 10-yard line and went past midfield to the OCA 45. The Gamecocks needed 10 plays to score, running back John Peeples carrying the football six times and four passes from quarterback Pate Merchant. Completions of 9 and 12 yards to wide receiver Jamie Tedder set up a 2-yard scoring run by Peeples. Placekicker Alex Krivejko added the extra point to make it 7-0 with 8:56 remaining in the first quarter.
It’s not as if the Gamecocks were completely shutting down the OCA offense though. They just didn’t allow them to score in the first half.
Oceanside’s first possession lasted 10 plays, ending on an incomplete pass by quarterback Edward Reidenbach on fourth down and six yards to go at the SHS 41. The Landsharks’ second drive was a massive 16-play drive that sucked 8 minutes, 23 seconds, off the clock starting at the 2:16 mark of the first quarter. The 55-yard possession ended when Reidenbach was denied a first down, being stopped for a 1-yard gain at the Sumter 31 on fourth and two with 5:53 left in the first half.
The Gamecocks responded with a lengthy drive of their own, but it came at a cost. They went 69 yards on 14 plays with Peeples scoring on a 13-yard run with 1:50 to go in the half. Midway through the possession, Merchant got hammered on an incompletion on third and 8 at the OCA 43. After an SHS timeout, Merchant completed a 10-yard pass to wide receiver Jacori Jackson to keep the drive alive, but that would be Merchant’s final play of the night. He had muscle soreness in his hip and back from the earlier hit, and Barnes decided to shut him down for the rest of the night.
“He actually could have come back if we needed him, he just wouldn’t have been very mobile,” Barnes said of Merchant, who completed 7 of 12 passes for 63 yards.. “I decided not to risk that in a non-region game when we need him for later in the season.”
Peeples is Sumter’s backup quarterback even though Jackson, the quarterback on the junior varsity last season, took some snaps in the second half. Peeples carried the football 36 times for 140 yards, 22 of those carries coming in the second half.
“I don't know what John is; I don't know how to describe John,” Barnes said of the 6-foot, 185-pound junior., who also completed 3 of 7 passes for 12 yards “No. 1, he's a warrior, and the game ain't never going to be too tough for that sucker.”.
` Oceanside head coach Chad Wilkes said the Gamecocks were far and above the better team in the first half.
“They were playing well,” Wilkes said. “They didn't do anything different, something that we had not seen before. We had seen everything in preparing our game plan, but they really just out-executed us. They got up 14-0 on pure execution.”
Sumter went into the locker room with that 14-0 lead. The Landsharks got the ball to start the second half, but SHS turned them over on downs with a first down. Reidenbach was stuffed on fourth and inches at the Gamecock46.
Sumter would hold on to the football for 12 plays, though it didn’t necessarily go very far. The Gamecocks only moved it 30 yards, reaching the OCA 24. However, that set up a 41-yard field goal by Krivejko to make it 17-0 with 4:57 left in the third quarter.
After an interception by defensive back Bryce Allen turned OCA away at the Sumter 6, the Gamecocks appeared to be in pretty good shape. However, Oceanside began to stack the box and made it very difficult for SHS – predominantly Peeples – to run the football.
“It was the worst thing that could happen to us,” Barnes said of Merchant’s injury. “That was the reason tonight's game was close. In the first half, we played a lot better. They're good up front and they overloaded us in the second half.”
Sumter punted on the first play of the fourth quarter with Oceanside taking over at its 38. OCA got it into the end zone as wide receiver Gavin Gaspar made a tremendous catch over a defender in the left corner of the end zone for a 21-yard TD pass Placekicker Nate Sturm added the extra point to make it 17-7 with 8:26 to go in the contest.
The Gamecocks had to punt from their 10 after three plays with OCA taking over at the 38. Reidenbach hooked up with wide receiver CJ Moskos for a 29-yard gain to the 9 on the first play. However, Sumter forced three consecutive incompletion and the Landsharks had to settle for a 26-yard field goal from Sturm. That made it 17-10, still with 5:48 to go.
Sumter managed to get one first down on the next possession before having to punt. Oceanside took over at its 23 with 3:19 left. However, the Landsharks couldn’t get a first down with Reidenbach being picked off by defensive back Terrence Burgess around midfield with just under two minutes left.
SHS managed to squeeze out a first down on four runs by Peeples to put the game on ice.
“I was really proud of our players tonight,” said Barnes, whose team plays host to Socastee next Friday in its Region 4 opener. “For the first time this year, we had a lot of adversity. We'd lost two games in a row, and we lost our quarterback and everybody knows what that is to us. We had to answer a lot of questions tonight and we did it being physical.”
Reidenbach completed 14 of 22 passes for 159 yards and carried the ball 18 times for 56 yards.
Wilkes was proud of how his team worked itself back into the game in the final stanza.
“Our kids are never just going to quit on a game,” Wilkes said of the Landsharks, who open their Region 7 schedule next week on the road against Lake Marion. “For us, it always comes down to execution, and we executed very poorly in the first half. We executed a little better in the second half and that gave us the ball with a chance to tie the game. We’re a young team and this is something we can learn from.”
AJ Bracey had the other interception for Sumter. Jaheim Rose had 11 tackles and Bryson Cuffie had 10 tackles and 1 1/2 tackles for loss. Anthony Addison had nine tackles, a quarterback sack and 1 1/2 TFLs.
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