By Lonnie Turner
From the beginning of the 2018 high school football season, you’ve heard it announced at every game to sign your youngsters up for Saturday morning football, and this season you folk came through. The eleven- and twelve-year All-Star team went out this past Wednesday and played toe to toe a team from North Charleston…a team I might say that looked more like a Junior Varsity squad.
After holding the Wildcats to only one net yard on four plays, North Charleston wasted little time getting on the scoreboard. After losing two yards on a rush, Davian Brown rushed for seventeen yards to the Dillon 33 and on the third play of the series, Omarion Moore broke loose and scored on a 33-yard run at the 5:07. Brown rushed for the two-point conversion to give the youngsters from the low country an 8-0 lead in the battle for the Lower State Title.
From the time of the first score to the end of the second quarter the two teams duked it out defensively, but on Dillon’s first possession of the second, running back Sirmond McCallum ran 43 yards to the North Charleston one and barreled into the end zone on the very next play to pull within two points of a tie. A try for the tying two-point conversion failed and the halftime score was 8-6.
Not trying to make excuses, Coach Thompson agreed that the team was a lot bigger, but his youngsters just would not give in and continued to do battle in the trenches.
The All Stars had run into some pretty good teams on the way to the championship game, defeating a good Hartsville team, the best of Marlboro County and beat the Florence team to get the chance to play North Charleston.
With just 46 seconds left in the third quarter NC drove 78 yards in six plays with Yannick Smith going the final three yards for the win and a trip to the South Carolina State Stadium on Saturday to meet the Upper State All Stars from Mauldin.
McCallum led the rushing for Dillon with 61 yards on 6 plays and Kameron Singletary caught three passes from Jamarion Fling for 18 yards.
Davian Brown led North Charleston with 69 yards rushing on 8 plays and Moore carried 4 times for 63 yards. Most of his yardage came on the late third quarter scoring drive. Moore also netted 30 yards on two pass receptions from QB Kenneth Brown, who also completed one pass to Davian Brown for 14 more yards.
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Photos by Johnnie Daniels/The Dillon Herald
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