James Island Starts ’25 Season With Impressive 24-8 Win Over Gray Collegaite

By Billy G. Baker

Publisher

James Island -James Island’s 24-8 win over visiting Gray Collegiate revealed that the 21 member senior laden Trojans have a talented offense led by senior quarterback Connor Dantzler (6-1, 190), a strong defense led by junior LB Bryson Bowers (5-11,195), and according to head coach Jamar McCoy “the best special teams” in the state.

The Trojan’s came into the season ranked 6th in the HSSR Div. I AAAAA ranking and they are now prepaing for a game against Hilton Head this Friday night. 

After the game Coach McCoy shared some thoughts with the HSSR, “I am kind of in the middle about this game, not too good and not too bad,” said Coach McCoy. “I will know more when I review the game film, and see what we did, and what we can correct, before we play Hilton Head on Friday night.

“We can do a lot of fun things with our offense and there were some things we didn’t show tonight that we still a little mor epractice on,” said Caoch McCoy. “This is just our first game of the season, and we ran some plays just to get on film so we could evalauate how effective we were.

“Linebacker Bryson Connors is the leader of our defense, and Connor Dantzler is the leader o our offense, point blank,” said Coach McCoy. “Those two guys are strong leaders for this team.

“We have another quiet leader coming on strong on defesne in number three Zemarius Gladden who shut down things on his side of the firld tonight,” said Coach McCoy. “Also in the offensive line junior Israel Harris is a good vovcal leader. All these guys I mentioned are vocal leaders.”   

    Against Gray, Dantzler completed 20-of-31 passes for 208 yards and two touchdowns. He socred the Trojan’s third touchdown on a three yard run. Senior running back Malachi Washington powered his way to 88 yards on 18 carries.

Sophomore WR Raphael Puiu (6-0,180) scored on a six-yard pass reception from Dantzler in the first half. Senior WR James Hurteau scored on a 16-yard reception from Dantzler in the first half also.

James Island led 21-0 at the half. They added a 34-yard field goal by Isaac Lawrence with 10:59 left in the game for their only points of the second half.

The Trojan’s were by Grant on defense who had numerous tackles on the night. The huge Trojan OL was led by junior Israel Harris, (6-3, 280) cited by Caoch McCoy for his play after the game. 

Gray Collegiate, a AAAA team, avoided the shut-out when back-up quarterback Xavier Wright came in early in the 4^th quarter and moved the team down the field with several on time passes. He hooked up on a 46-yard TD pass with WR Kaleb Berry wth 10:10 left in the game. Berry broke a tackle after catching the ball and then out-raced the defense to the end zone. Wright also rn in a two-point conversion.

After the game Gray Collegiate head coach De’Angelo Bryant was rather pointed on what the War Eagles needed to do to regroup by the time they play travel to AAA Marlboro County this Friday night.

“Sometimes you need a little spark, and we felt like Xavier was ready to get in the game (at quarterback) in the second half and he did some good things in moving the offense,” said Coach Bryant. “Having to play on the road on a Monday night kind of got us out o shink in this game. We got guys not running their pass routes properly and our offensive line did a poor job of proetecting our quarterbacks tonight.

“We have to go back to the drawing board in practice tomorrow,” said Caoch Bryant. “We have to find out which guys are going to play with us for all four quarters. I saw some things during the game we will address in practice.

“We have to get back to the basicsand find out which one of guys are going to be there for us in the fourth quarter,” said Coach Bryant. “We have to correct a lot of things we did wrong if we expect to stay on the field with Marlboro County Friday night.”

Note: Gray Collegiate senior linebacker Michael Boulware was a bright spot for Gray on defense with at least 10 tackles and two TFL. He has an unoffical visit to Wake Forest scheduled this weekend.