PHOTO GALLERY from Coach Jackie Hayes’ 300th Win: Dillon Defeats Georgetown

The Dillon Wildcats defeated Georgetown on Friday night bringing Coach Jackie Hayes his 300th win. Photo gallery by Johnnie Daniels/The Dillon Herald below.

PHOTO GALLERY
Photos by Johnnie Daniels/The Dillon Herald
Click once to bring a photo into a single screen, and then again to enlarge.

By Lonnie Turner
Before anything else is written about the the Dillon Wildcat’s 55-27 victory over the Georgetown Bull Dogs Friday evening, Dillon head coach Jackie Hayes and his coaching staff won his 300th win out of 352 games as coach of the Wildcats for an 85.2% winning percentage. His mentor, Paul Chapman, recorded 167 wins and 67 losses, plus three ties during his stay at Dillon from 1969 through the 1089 season, so Coach Hayes can be proud of such a record, all coming at Dillon High where he was a pretty good option quarterback during his playing days wearing #18.
Don’t ever let anybody tell you that watching the Dillon Wildcats play football isn’t exciting, especially when they play sub-par during the first half! Just after Jahbriel Walker returned the opening second half kickoff 86 yards for a touchdown that gave Georgetown a 20-13 lead, the Wildcats came to life, scoring three touchdowns in the first nine minutes of the third quarter to take the lead at 34-20. The fourth quarter saw the upstart Cats put three more touchdowns on the scoreboard in only 2:45 minutes to score 42 unanswered points. Can they keep it up? That was the question after the Loris and Aynor games when Dillon fell behind early! Lord, don’t do that to us every week in the future. Don’t know if the old ticker is going to survive! Not only is Coach Hayes and his coaching staff great football coaches, they, too, are great motivators. What could have been said at halftime to get the Cats going? Whatever, but when they had their turn on offense, both teams, defense included, took over following the opening kick return for the Bull Dogs to drop the Cats to a 20-13 deficit.
With all that said, here’s what happened in front of a pretty good Dillon following, but not that many to start with from Georgetown. The Bull Dogs came out hitting on all cylinders with running back Paul Lance taking the opening hand off and going 48 yards before being stopped inside the Wildcats 30 yard line. At the 9:18 mark on the scoreboard, quarterback Bret Kirtley lofted a pass to Alex Smith at the Dillon two where he went high to catch the ball over two defenders and fell into the end zone. Ishmael Taylor was perfect with the PAT kick and Georgetown put the Cats behind, 7-0.
After Ty Rogers returned the ensuing kickoff for 37 yards, the Wildcats came back and tied the game in four plays with a 32-yard scoring toss from sophomore quarterback Jay Lester to Ty’Quan Porter. The Wildcats went ahead for the first time with four minutes left in the first half with Corrian Wright capping a 57-yard drive with a 2-yard romp off the left side of the Dillon line. The point after was missed, but the Cats enjoyed a 13-7 lead, which was short lived. Just two minutes later Kirtland, who threw all three offensive touchdowns for the Bull Dogs, found Deakidd Anderson for a 58 touchdown pass and Taylor’s second PAT of the game gave the Bull Dogs a 14-13 halftime lead, which was the first time this season that the Cats found themselves down at the intermission.
Then, after the returned kickoff put the Bull dogs ahead 20-13, the fireworks began, not like the display before the opening kickoff by neighbor Jerry Douglas and friends, but just as exciting.
A 33-yard pass to freshman wide receiver Ahmir Huggins-Bruce on fourth play of the following series for the Cats, set up a 16-yard romp by Williams, for the a touchdown and Dawad’s kick tied the game.
The Dillon defense set up the next score within a minute when Tae’Ran Bogan picked off the third of five intercepted passes for the Cats to give the Cats a first down at the Bull Dog 38-yard line. Aided by a pass interference flag on the third play of the short drive, Corrian Wright scooted into the end zone from the two from the Wildcats formation to go ahead for good, 27-20.
The “Nasty Cat” defense held the Dogs on their following drive inside the five-yard line, three times inside the two, to thwart the would be scoring drive at the two.
Having been on the sidelines since the first play of the Loris game, Jalen Williams took a hand off from Lester, cut to his left and ran 73 yards before stepping out of bounds at the Georgetown 25-yard line. Following a first down run to the 14 by Wright, Williams ran for ten more yards and scored from a yard out for his second score of the game to give the Cats a 34-20 lead at the start of the final quarter.
With the Bull Dogs at their own 14, following two straight losses, Ty’Reek Cabbagestalk picked off Kirtley for the fourth Dillon defense at the 15 and scored. Dawad, who hadn’t missed on four straight PAT tries, was perfect for a 41-20 lead with 11:51 left on the clock .
The Bull Dogs kept the ball on their following possession for only two plays when Kirtley lost a fumble at the Georgetown 25. Ahmari Huggins -Bruce took a pitch from Lester on the first play, turned around his right end and scored with 10:48 left on the clock.
The Wildcat defense continued its pressure, forcing still another fumble at their own 30 on the second play. Four plays and not quite 2 minutes later Dillon has a 55-20 lead with quarterback Lester going the final five yards.
Georgetown finally got back on the scoreboard with a 30-yard touchdown pass from Kirtley to Alex Smith with four and a half minutes remaining in the game.
The Wildcats were held to three and out on their final possession and punted, but the Bull Dogs were silenced again by the Cat defense when Daizion Alford intercepted Kirtley for the fifth time to end the game.
The Wildcats ran off 453 yards in offense and had a net total yardage of 610 yards, with Williams rushing 25 times for 212 yards of 343 yards on the ground and Lester completing six of ten passes for 110 yards through the air.
The Bull Dogs, until the second half, kept things interesting finishing the game with 200 yards in the air and 132 yards rushing.
In addition to the five pass interceptions, which runs that total to 19 through nine games, Dray Thompson upped his game leading tackle number to 71 with 12 take downs.
The Wildcats will celebrate Senior Night this coming Friday as they entertain the Lake City Panthers in the final regular season game.