Sumter puts up 65 points in first half in 72-30 victory over Gray Collegiate

Sumter – The Sumter High School football team rushed for 460 yards in its game against Gray Collegiate Academy on Friday at Sumter Memorial Stadium. Oh, one small detail was missing: all of that came in the first half.

    That’s right, the Gamecocks had almost 500 rushing yards in the first half on just 26 carries as they scored 65 points on the way to a 72-30 victory.

    Sumter improved to 5-3 on the season and 2-0 in Region 4-AAAAA. The War Eagles dropped to 3-5 and 1-1.

    The win was the third in a row for Sumter under first-year head coach Drew Marlowe, who returned to coach his alma mater after winning two state championships and playing for two others at South Florence. Marlowe hopes to see this type of performance with more regularity.

“Tonight was a special night, but tonight’s been a long time coming where we rip off some big ones, where we don’t hurt ourselves, we don’t get penalties,” Marlowe said. “We’re really good on offense when we execute at a high level.

“They came out and played us a lot differently on defense than we thought they were going to. We really felt like we needed to get the ball to the perimeter a lot, but the way they were playing us gave us really good blocking angles. We kind of ran our base offense. We executed at a high level, we didn’t hurt ourselves with turnovers, we didn’t get penalties.”

SHS led 65-22 at halftime and scored on its first possession of the second half to open a 50-point advantage. The final two quarters were played with a running clock. Sumter finished with 570 rushing yards.

Sumter set three school records – the most points in a game (besting the old mark of 70 over Bluffton in 2019), the most rushing yards (468 versus West Florence in 2024) and total offense with 612 (562 against Airport in 2003).

Gray Collegiate head coach De’Angelo Bryant stated the obvious about the game’s outcome.

“The physicality really got to us,” Bryant said. “It’s something they show on film, You know what they’re doing. They don’t hide what their identity is. We failed to match it. Not only did we get blown off the ball, but we didn’t make tackles, just get them on the ground, just make them play another possession, another play. We just didn’t do enough to really control that.”

In the first half, Sumter had no rushing plays for negative yardage or no gain. The shortest gain was for one yard, coming in the final minute of the half, and only five total plays went for less than five yards.

    Now for the chunk play numbers. Sixteen plays went for 10 yards or more, eight covered 25 yards or more, and five went for 39 yards or more.

    The Sumter backfield rotation didn’t play in the second half, so all of these numbers came before halftime. Quarterback Franklin Richardson, who committed to Maryland earlier in the week, rushed for 206 yards and two touchdowns on six carries, freshman Jamarion Witherspoon had 143 yards and two scores on 11 carries, junior Reggie Shannon ran for 52 yards and two scores on six carries, and senior Cleveland Pinkney III had three carries for 63 yards and a touchdown.

    In the second half, senior Edward Tiller carried the ball 13 times for 70 yards. Sumter received the second-half kickoff, and Sophomore backup quarterback Keyon McClinton scored on a 42-yard run with 9:30 remaining in the third quarter.

    While everyone will see the massive numbers, Marlowe said the key to the game was the performance of his offensive line.

“Our offensive line just dominated the game tonight,” Marlowe said. “The story of the game is we scored 72, but it should be that our offensive line just dominated every single snap.”

    Junior left tackle Javon Canty, senior center Cooper Zeigler and senior right guard Brian Johnson are every-down players. Senior Demarcus Norris and junior Lionel Scott alternate series at left guard and junior I’Sean Macer and senior Keytrelle Griffin do the same at right tackle. The tight end is junior Ari Rendel and the H back is senior Lucas Brownlee.

    GCA received the opening kickoff and actually jumped out to a 7-0 lead. It went 80 yards in 11 plays, converting on three third downs, including an 11-yard scoring run by sophomore quarterback Xavier Wright with 8:31 left in the first quarter. Senior placekicker Weston Mims added the extra point.

    That lead held up for less than two minutes. A 26-yard run by Richardson and a pass in the flat to junior wide receiver Joshua Pendergrass on which he made a spin move to break a tackle and turned it into a 40-yard reception set up a 2-yard scoring run by Shannon on the next play. Marlowe decided to go for the 2-point conversion and Richardson ran it in to make it 8-7 with 6:45 left.

    Sumter would go for 2 – and succeed each time – after each of its first seven TDs. Richardson ran for four, Pinkney two and Shannon one.

    “On the first drive, I felt like we had them so I just went for two right there,” Marlowe said. “To be honest with you, early in the game I didn’t think we were going to stop them. so I felt like I wanted to put pressure on them to go for two and hopefully we can stop some. To be honest with you, I just didn’t think they could stop us from three yards away.”

    Gray went marching down the field on its ensuing possession, picking up a first down at the Sumter 19-yard line. After a 2-yard gain, Wright was sacked by senior defensive end Rashaun Dickey and stripped of the football. Senior safety Anthriest Hill recovered at the 28.

    A 39-yard run by Richardson helped set up a 10-yard scoring run by Witherspoon as Sumter made it 16-7 with 1:02 still left in the first quarter. However, there would be two more touchdowns scored before the second quarter began.

    Wright connected with senior Shrine Bowl wide receiver Royce Williamson for a 60-yard scoring pass to make it 16-14 with 47 seconds to go. The Gamecocks responded by going 80 yards in three plays. Shannon went 15 yards on first down followed by a 52=yard tote by Richardson. Pinkney scored from 13 yards out to make it 24-14 with four seconds remaining.

    SHS finally started to slow the Eagles down some and exploded for 41 points in the second quarter.

    Sumter’s defense recorded a 3-downs-and-out series, forcing GCA to punt. Witherspoon returned it 75 yards for a score, but it was brought back due to a penalty. The Gamecocks started at the Gray 45, and Shannon scored on a 12-yard run with 10:47 left in the second quarter to make it 32-14.

    SHS recorded a 3-and-out on the next series as well to force a punt. Gamecock junior Aaden Addison broke through to block the kick, and junior Josh Peeples picked it up at the Gray 14 and went into the end zone to make it 40-14 with 9:18 left in the first half.

    Sumter pushed the lead to 48-14 on an 8-yard run by Witherspoon before Wright connected with Williamson oon a 35-yards scoring pass to make it 48-22 with 3:23 left.

    The Gamecocks still had 17 points to score though. Richardson broke off a 67-yard touchdown run with 2:34 left. SHS then forced another punt, and a strong pass rush caused a low kick that hit the up man and the football ricocheted out of the back of the end zone for a safety. That made it 58-22 with 1:31 remaining.

    Sumter received the free kick, and on the final play of the half, Richardson went up the gut for a 44-yard TD run. The Gamecocks kicked the extra point this time with freshman backup placekicker Brayden Taylor doing the honors.

“We’ve got four dudes in the backfield who are as good as anybody in the state and an offensive line that os probably the best in the state, and you want to impose your will on people” Marlowe said. “That’s what we want to do, that’s what we want to build here. We want to be feared, we want to run the football, to be physical and make the other team quit.”

Wright completed 21 of 39 passes for 334 yards and three touchdowns to lead GCA. Williamson had all three TDs among his nine catches for 207 yards. Senior Corey Gleaton had five receptions for 84 yards.

For Gray, Bryant’s message to his team was the simple fact it had to regroup.

“We’ve simply got to own it,” Bryant said. “We’ve got to understand what tonight was for us. We’ve simply got to go back to work and find some ways to win some football games. The great part about it is we’re still in the hunt (for the region title). Ridge View and Sumter have to play, and one’s got to win and one’s got to lose, so that might put us back in a position where when we play against Ridge View we’ll just have to see where we’re at. Maybe we’re the team that scrambles up this whole thing.”

    Sumter travels to Ridge View this Friday, and the Gamecocks can win the region title with a victory. Should the Blazers beat SHS and Gray knocks off Blythewood on Friday, the Eagles will have a chance to bring about a 3-way tie for the region title with a win when they visit Ridge View on October 23.