By Lonnie Turner
The Dillon Wildcats scored in the air, on the ground and on special teams Friday night to declaw the Wilson Tigers, 34-14, to remain undefeated through four games.
Having the best game of the season at quarterback, sophomore Jay Lester threw for two touchdowns and ran for another as the Cats steamrolled over the Tigers. Jalen Williams continued to make strides running the football rushing 23 times for 129 yards and two touchdowns to run his team leading number to 9 for the season. He leads the Wildcats with 547 yards for a 7.8 yard average per rush. Lester has also completed 61% (37 of 61 attempts) of his passes for 376 yards and four TDs.
While the offense was running on all cylinders, defensive back Ty’Quan Porter extended his interceptions to six for the season with three picks off Wilson Quarterback Jacob Quillen and scored his second punt return touchdown for the year with a 37-yard run back in the first quarter.
“I had great blocking and they set up a wall for me and I just did what I had to do,” said Porter, whose returns look a lot like the ones Derrick Hamilton made while he was at Dillon. We expect him to havethe kind of game we got out of him tonight, because he is a good player,” said Coach Hayes.
Williams was instrumental in the first TD of the night with a 38-yard run on the second play of the game to the Tiger 13 and on the next play Corrian Wright took a 13-yard toss from Lester with 10:46 left in the quarter. It didn’t take the Cats long to get on the scoreboard again when Ryan Nelson was forced to punt from his own end zone to the Wilson 37 where Porter fielded the kick in stride. He broke to his right and picked up some blocking, then made some “ESPN highlight” moves and cut back to his left and outran would-be tacklers to take a 13-0 lead. Ahmad Dawad’s kick was perfect to give the Cats a 14-0 lead.
The Wildcats scored again with 1:10 minute remaining in the half on a ten-yard pass reception by Williams to exptend the Wildcats lead to 21-7, but the Tigers, after a 51-yard pass from Quillen to Antwan Smith and a pass interference call on the Cat defense, led to their first score, which was a lob pass into the corner of the end-zone from 13 yards out with just 22 seconds left in the half.
Just when Wilson head coach Derek Howard thought his Tigers were coming back, Lester went to work again to start the second half after the Wildcats defense held Quillen and the Tigers to force a punt at near midfield that covered only 15 yards. Seven plays and two first downs later, Lester hit Williams for a 24-yard touchdown, but the kick by Dawad was wide to the right of the goal post to put the Cats up 27-7.
Lester would run the ball into the end zone with 3-1/2 minutes remaining in the game when return specialist Shai’quan Scott fumbled a Lester 36-yard punt at the Wilson 16 where Jackson Hayes recovered to give the ball back to the Cats.Williams running out of the backfield carried twice to get to the five and from there Lester called his own number and broke off right guard to score the final touchdown. Dawad’s kick was good to give the Cats a 34-7 lead.
Wilson was able to get back into the Wildcat end zone with a minute to go in the game driving 65 yards on 12 plays and aided by a roughing the passer penalty. Quillen took the ball in on a quarterback keeper from three yards out and Nelson’s kick for PAT was good. Nelson’s on-side kick that followed was the necessary ten yards, but the Cats covered at the Dillon 44. In an effort to run the clock out, Lester took a knee twice, before the Tigers used their last time-out, and then fell on the ball to end play.
“We just have to find ways to get better and playing this kind of team will help us in the long run,” chimed in Howard.
The Wildcats will be at Memorial Stadium again Friday evening for the fourth straight home game to play the Marlboro County Bull Dogs, a one touchdown loser last week to the Hartsville Red Foxes, 21-14, in game that really was as close as it looked. The Bull Dogs, since consolidation back in 1988, has made great strides against the Cats winning 9 times out of 12 games. The last win for the Dogs was a 27- 6 decision, but Wildcats went on to knock off the Fairfield-Central Griffins, 41-3, to win the 2-A State Title.
Expect a huge crowd from Bennettsville, which has become one of the best rivalries since the loss of the Lake View Gators on the Dillon schedule.
