By Lonnie Turner
They aren’t going to be taken as lightly as a couple of years ago when the Lake Marion Gators were completely destroyed in back to back state playoff seasons by the Dillon Wildcats. The Cats shutout the Gators, 57-0 in 2012 and in 2013, they were hammered, 59-6.
“They are very physical and have some real athletes on the team this year,” said a concerned Dillon Head Coach Jackie Hayes.
Lake Marion, known for their outstanding basketball program over the years, have really not gotten into football a strongly. Head Coach Chris Carter is very optimistic about playing the Wildcats.
“It’ll be a good challenge for us, because we have never gotten this far and Dillon has a great program.”
Junior fullback Josh Valdez has rushed for 979 yard this season and has scored 13 touchdowns and can catch the football coming out of the backfield and the leading pass receiver is junior wide receiver is 6’4, 190 pound Camryn Johnson, who has caught 45 passes this season for 825 yards and seven scores.
The Wildcats will counter with running back Jamison Chapman, who is just 56 yards shy of a 1,000 yard season and the 5’9,185 pounder is looking to accomplish that rushing goal.
He has given the offensive linemen Dawson Dove, Poppy Sealey and Harley Mincey much credit for giving him the room to run.
Daeshawn Davis, another running back that continues to haunt opponent defensive linemen has contributed nearly 500 yards and 16 touchdowns to the offensive stats, with most of his running out of the “Wildcat” formation.
Leading in the receiving department are Kanore McKinnon (31 catches for 532 yards and 10 TDs), Morgan Covington (22 for 470 and 5 scores and a trio of other receivers who have caught at least 15 passes each, including Davis with 16 and Chapman and Diaz Alexander.
“Defensively we have played pretty well,” said Carter, “and they do play physical. Tackle leaders are Zaiquez Wright (6′, 215) with 126 total tackles and Davondre Robinson (6′ 2′, 210 pound), who has 97 total take downs. The Gators use a two quarterback system with Junior field general D’ontre Gilliard usually on offensive pass plays. He has thrown 107 times and completed 70 percent of his attempts for 1621 yards and nine touchdowns, but Davondre Johnson has rushed for 795 yards compared to 120 for Gilliard.
On the other hand for the Wildcats, Avery McCall will be making most of the calls for Dillon.
In 12 games this season, he has a 65% completion rate and 1590 yards with 15 going for touchdowns.
The Wildcats are led on the tackle chart by Jermaine McDaniel with 83 tackles.
Should be a great game, so again, get to the stadium early and cheer on the Wildcats!
