Summerton – From the first play of the football game, Manning High School set the tone against Clarendon County School District rival Scott’s Branch. And it never changed.
Jamari Wilson returned the opening kickoff 75 yards for a touchdown, and the Monarchs never really took the foot off the gas in what ended up as a 50-0 victory at Spann Stadium.
“We preached on getting off to a good start. We wanted to get off to a better start than we did last week,” said Monarchs head coach Reggie Kennedy, whose team opened the season with a 24-8 victory over Kingstree. “I think we did. Defensively, we created a lot of turnovers. We probably scored more points on defense than offense tonight.”
It was actually a wash. Wilson’s return brought the only special teams points. MHS returned two interceptions for scores, had two scoring drives of 57 yards or more and had two TDs set up by a short field after a turnover.
The Eagles, who have been outscored 106-0 in their first two games after losing to Hunter-Kinard-Tyler 56-0 in the opener, had five turnovers. Along with the two interceptions, they lost three fumbles.
“A lot of our guys have never played football before,” said second-year head coach Randall State. “We've got five returners, six returners, so it's going to be pretty ugly early on. We're going to try and fix some stuff and iron out some mistakes, get some guys in the right places and try to do better next week.”
After the kickoff return, Manning forced SBHS to punt and took possession at its 43-yard line. The Monarchs needed five plays to get into the end zone. Wide receiver Jeffrey Ceasar had a 12-yard reception from quarterback JaRae Mitchell, Jaylnn Coard had a 10-yard run and Wilson had a 17-yard run to get them to the Scott’s Branch 1-yard line. Running back Emmanuel Betrand scored on the next play and the 6-foot-2-inch, 260-pound Coard ran for the 2-point conversion to make it 16-0 with 7:03 left in the first quarter.
It took a kickoff and one offensive play from the Eagles for MHS to get on the scoreboard again. Freshman Quintin Jackson, one of three players to take snaps at QB for SBHS, was intercepted by linebacker DJ McFadden at the Scott’s Branch 28. He took it in for the score to make 22-0 with 6:38 left.
Kennedy was happy with the way his defense played.
“They played with their hair on fire tonight, and that's kind of what we wanted,” he said. “I thought we had a great week of practice. Our defensive staff did a good job of putting them in position to make plays and our kids made the plays. We turned the football over and scored off the turnovers. That's real big.”
Manning’s next score came off an interception as well. Junior Nigel Lawson had the football going forward when he lost it and Monarch defensive lineman Jontavious Canty grabbed it out of the air. He went 15 yards for the score and running back Triston Thames added the 2-point run to make it 30-0 with 1:17 left in the first quarter.
Scott’s Branch fumbled the ball away at its 16 and Coard went around left end on the next play with 7:42 left in the second quarter to make the halftime score 36-0.
The second half was played with a running clock. The Monarchs did put together a 12-play, 75-yard scoring drive on its first possession of the second half. It ended with Thames scoring from three yards out and Coard running for two.
The final score came after the Eagles lost a fumble at their 25. Running back Emory Hampton scored from two yards out.
The Monarchs finished with 117 rushing yards which was deceiving because of the turnovers and the short fields. Kennedy likes what his squad is doing offensively.
` “I think we finally did find an identity for our offense. We've got to run the football first to set up our passing game. That's one thing we did late in the game tonight.
“We wanted to work on a few things passing-wise for something we're going to need a little later down the road.”
Mitchell was 5-for-9 for 46 yards.
State, who led Marion to the AA state championship game in 2020, was disappointed with his team’s overall play.
“We look for Manning to try and make us better every year, but I don't know if that happened tonight,” he said. “Hopefully we got better. We're going to get better. I don't know if that's going to turn into wins, but we're going to get better.
“We’re learning lessons, a lot of young guys. We've just got to go to Game 3 and iron out some things.”
Scott’s Branch will be traveling to Great Falls next week.
“We're still trying to find the guys that can run the ball, that can limit mistakes," said State, who also had junior Randy Williams taking snaps behind center. "We haven't found that guy yet at quarterback. We're just going to use a bunch of guys to run the ball and keep teams on their toes. That's our hope. We've got to use players to keep teams off pace, try to change the speed, change the pace.”
Manning will be going to the other end of Clarendon County on Friday to Turbeville to take on East Clarendon. That is Kennedy’s alma mater, which he helped lead to the 1985 Class A state tile as an All-State linebacker.
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