Williamsburg Gets Off To Good Start
WA senior running back Grant Small, a 2,000-yard rusher from last season rambled for 155 yards and a touchdown on 22 carries against Trinity Collegiate.
By Dennis Brunson
HSSR.com Associate Editor
Kingstree – When Will Furse walked off the field of Manning High School’s Ramsey Stadium on Friday, August 14, the Williamsburg Academy football head coach wasn’t disappointed. Disgusted was probably the more appropriate word.
The Stallions, the defending SCISA Class A state champions, had just lost to East Clarendon 28-0 in the Fifth Annual FTC Jamboree – in a scrimmage of two 15-minute quarters with a running clock.
“It was embarrassing,” Furse said immediately following the scrimmage. “We just didn’t play our standard of football. East Clarendon’s a good football team, not taking anything away from the way they played. We couldn’t do anything on offense. We just didn’t play our brand of football tonight.”
Williamsburg had to wait basically two weeks before it got back on the field. It was supposed to start its regular season on August 21 against Laurence Manning Academy, but inclement weather led to the ultimate cancellation of the game.
The Stallions finally got to kick off the season on Thursday, August 27, against Trinity Collegiate in Darlington. They trailed 6-0 after one quarter before getting things rolling in the second quarter and going on to a 32-14 triumph.
While he no doubt knew his team had upped its performance in a big way, Furse wasn’t about to get too excited about the season opener.
“We played one game, we won that game, so we’re 1-0,” said Furse, who is in his second season at Williamsburg. “It certainly could be worse. We didn’t play great against Trinity. We had too many turnovers and had too many penalties. Those are things we can’t continue to do and expect to win. Those are things we need to improve upon.”
The Stallions rolled up 402 yards of total offense, 305 of them coming on the ground. Leading the way was senior running back Grant Small, a 2,000-yard rusher from last season. He rambled for 155 yards and a touchdown on 22 carries.
Fellow senior Eli Brown had a strong game as well, running for 129 yards and two touchdowns on 20 carries. Sophomore quarterback Caden Morris had two carries for 13 yards.
Morris, who played wide receiver as a freshman, was making his first start at quarterback. He completed 5 of 12 passes for 97 yards with two of the completions going for scores.
“Offensively I thought we ran the ball well at times, and I thought our quarterback threw the ball well,” Furse said. “He made a lot of good throws, and we only expect him to get better.
“I think we did a good job running a lot of our base plays.”
Senior Charlie Caulder had three of the receptions for 76 yards and a touchdown. Another senior, Michael Ard, also had a TD catch for 25 yards.
Williamsburg has each of the five players who started on the offensive line in the 36-14 championship game win over Colleton Prep Academy returning. They are Ard at right guard, senior Marlin Morris at right tackle, senior Mason Cribb at left tackle, senior Sammy Tomlinson at left guard and junior Henderson Livingston at center.
“I thought our offensive line did a good job blocking for the most part,” Furse said.
After struggling like it did in the jamboree, Furse was very happy with the performance of the defense.
“I thought our defense played tremendously,” Furse said. “Trinity only had around 100 yards of total offense. They tried to spread us out and throw it around a lot, but we did a very good job of making them 1-dimensional offensively.”
Williamsburg had tackles spread out all across the unit. Ard, junior Wyatt Williams and junior Lane Patrick led the way in tackles with five apiece. The Stallions got a lot of pressure on the Trinity quarterback as Marlin Morris had four quarterback hurries and sophomore Gavin Matthews, Williams and sophomore Jack McGill had two apiece.
The Stallions also had four interceptions, two of them by Patrick and one apiece from Caulder and junior Bryson Wheeler. Junior Gamble Wilson and senior Hall Dukes each broke up a pass.
Furse wasn’t sure how much of a factor., if any, not getting to play the opener against Laurence Manning affected the Stallions.
“I don’t think its ever a good thing to lose a game because of weather,” he said. “Laurence Manning was going to be a very tough test for our team. You can’t fret over it too much at this point though. We won the next game, which is important.
“I think we learned a lot about ourselves in the first three weeks. We just have to continue to improve. It was kind of a gutcheck for both the players and the coaches following the jamboree. We’ve been working every day to get better since then.”
Williamsburg has a tough non-region foe set up for its next game as it plays host to 3-time defending SCISA AAA state runner-up Wilson Hall on September 4. The Stallions then begin play in Region 2-AA, opening at Greenwood Christian School on September 11 before playing host to Spartanburg Day School on September 18.
Williamsburg’s other two region contests will both be on the road. The Stallions will play at Orangeburg Preparatory School on October 2 and at longtime rival Pee Dee Academy to close the regular season on October 30.
The other three non-region contests are at Lee Academy on September 25, at home against Florence Christian School on October 9 and at home against St. John’s Christian Academy on October 16.
