Pinewood Prep whips Wilson Hall 55-13 to defend SCISA AAA state title

Orangeburg – The Pinewood Prep football team felt as if it had something to prove in the SCISA AAA state championship game on Saturday at South Carolina State’s Oliver C. Dawson Stadium.

The defending state champion Panthers were facing Wilson Hall, the team they beat for the crown, again. However, in a regular-season matchup, the Barons had come away with a 28-21 victory.

Pinewood made its point – emphatically.

After not scoring on their first possession, the Panthers scored touchdowns on their next six possessions for a 42-7 halftime lead on Willie Jeffries Field. When it was said and done, Pinewood Prep had a 55-13 victory and the title of 2-time defending state champion.

“We just really competed against each other, knowing what we had to do,” said Panthers junior wide receiver Lavoris Lucas, who had eight catches for 142 yards and three touchdowns and five rushes for 56 yards. “We were really dialed in as a team. We knew what the outcome was going to be if we all played together.”

Pinewood head coach Devonte’ Holloman said in the first meeting it was Wilson Hall that controlled the pace of the game with its run-oriented single-wing offense. That, along with turnover issues, was the reason for the defeat.

“They controlled the clock, wasted a lot of the clock,” said Holloman, whose team finished the season with a 10-3 record. “They executed their game plan really, really well. Tonight, we executed our game plan really well. We scored first and kept it rolling.”

The game plan was pretty much junior quarterback Silas Brawner getting the ball into the hands of Lucas, senior wide receiver Jaden Alexander, junior tight end Heyward Moore and junior wide receiver Tre Green. Brawner completed 19 of 30 passes for 331 yards and five touchdowns. Like Lucas, Alexander had over 140 yards receiving as well, finishing with 146 and two TD receptions on five catches. Moore had three catches for 41 yards, and Green had two receptions for 21 yards and a score.

Brawner credited his teammates for the success he had.

“It's easy to do what I do when I have the O(ffensive) line that I have,” Brawner said of seniors Cameron Wren, Hayden Presley and MacGregor Tuten and juniors David Harper and Carlie Muckelvaney. “Then I have the receivers who can make the plays.”

For Wilson Hall, it was its third straight loss in the AAA title game. The Barons, who finished with an 11-2 record, had six players miss the game with injuries, two others playing hurt and had sickness run through the team at the first of the week, limiting practice time. Also, top senior running back Ben McLaurin was injured during the game.

““We’re just kind of out of gas,” said WH head coach Adam Jarecki. “We’re beat up and I told you we’d love to play this game one time at full strength.” In the two previous appearances, Wilson Hall had to play without key players lost late in the season.

All of that being said, Jarecki knew the Barons had a steep hill to climb either way.

“They’ve got a great team and we knew that early,” he said of Pinewood. “We felt like if we got on them like last time we played them and everything would go our way and we controlled the clock we had a chance to play with them. We had to stop them and we didn’t. We didn’t play well and then we couldn’t get out of our own way. We just weren’t sharp, and you’ve got to be sharp to beat a good team.

“Hats off to them. They jumped on us early, and they put it on us.”

       The Panthers drove from their 22-yard line to the Wilson Hall 15 before turning the ball over on downs on their first possession. A 39-yard run by McLaurin helped the Barons move deep into Panthers territory on the ensuing possession. WH eventually turned the ball over on downs at the 28.

       A 41-yard completion from Brawner to Alexander on the first play got Pinewood out of the hole immediately with a first down at the Wilson Hall 36. Four plays later, Brawner connected with Green for a 21-yard TD pass. Senior placekicker Patryk Dzierzanowski added the extra point to make it 7-0 with 2:08 remaining in the first quarter.

       Pinewood Prep got the ball at the Baron 49 on the next possession, and it took just one play with Alexander and Brawner hooking up. That made it 14-0 with seven seconds left in the quarter.

       That would be the first of four straight Pinewood possessions that began in Baron territory. Wilson Hall had to punt from its 1 on the next possession, so the Panthers started at the 27. Senior Will Watson came in at quarterback and ran a draw up the middle for a touchdown to make it 21-0 with 10:02 to go in the second quarter.

       Pinewood Prep started inside Baton territory the next time as well, this time at the 39. Brawner connected with Lucas this time, a 34-yard scoring pass to make it 28-0 with 7:17 remaining in the first half. The next drive started at the 33 and ended with Lucas hauling in a 19-yard scoring pass to make it 35-0 with an even five minutes left.

       Wilson finally got on the scoreboard, putting together an 8-play, 71-yard drive. It ended with senior quarterback Ford Wilder tossing an 18-yar scoring pass to senior split end Cooper Hill. Sophomore placekicker Nehemiah Dinkins added the PAT to make it 35-7 with 1;46 to go.

       The Panthers chose not to sit on the 28-point lead. Instead, they drove 76 yards in six plays with Watson connecting with Lucas for a 16-yard score 20 seconds before intermission for a 42-7 lead. Watson had two touches on on offense, both going for touchdowns. Defensively, Watson had 10 tackles and two tackles for a loss in the secondary.

       The second half was anticlimactic. Wilson Hall had another 71-yard scoring drive, this one needing five plays. It started with a 32-yard completion from Wilder to McLaurin. It ended with Wilder scoring on a 2-yard run with 2:23 remaining in the third quarter to make it 42-13.

       Pinewood Prep’s final two scores came in the fourth quarter. Junior running back Grayson Salego scored on a 3-yard run with 8:37 left, and Alexander hauled in a 20-yard TD pass from Brawner with 4:46 to go. Salego had seven carries for 21 yards.

       The Panthers had five quarterback sacks with junior defensive lineman Jacob Sweet leading the way with 2 ½. He had 4 ½ tackles for loss among his six total tackles.

Sophomore defensive lineman Mason Summers had seven tackles, 3 ½ TFLs and one sack, and freshman linebacker Nathan Good had eight tackles, 2 ½ TFLs and one sack.
 

Wilson Hall graduates 17 seniors from this team. Jarecki has nothing but praise for them, not only for this year but for their careers as well.

“This group of seniors graduates with three trips to the state championship and not many people can say that,” Jarecki said. “I’m extremely proud of them. They’re our leaders at the school. They’re the influential people at our school. We’d love to see them go out with success in the end, but what they accomplished is pretty special, and they’ve got to take pride in that.

“They had a great year and they’ve had a great career. It’s tough not to come out on top, but they know what it takes to get here and they bought into it.”

Holloman said the Panthers more than rose to the challenge of being defending state champions.

“Last year we were chasing history, this year we were chasing excellence,” the former South Carolina and National Football League defensive back said. “Can we do it again, can we be better, can we repeat? It was very tough, a lot of new faces, a lot of new coaches. Hats off to everybody. We kept improving, kept getting better and better each week.”

“It was a mesh kind of thing,” Brawner said. “We had a bunch of new guys come in, we had to get to where we knew one another, mesh as a team. This shows what happens when we mesh.”

Alexander said it’s nice to be able to quieten the naysayers.

“A lot of people had a lot of things to say like, ‘Anybody can do anything once,’ he said. “But to say we did it twice, they really can’t say anything now.”