By Lonnie Turner
Since dropping three of its first five games, the Timberland Wolves have reeled off seven straight wins, including an impressive come from behind thriller last week against Gilbert, 49-29. The Wolves will take a trip up from St. Stephens to visit the Wildcats as the teams meet for the tenth time in post season playoff games.
The Wolves were beaten to start the season by the North Myrtle Beach Chiefs, 28-13, but bounced back to knock off Dorchester, 27-21, in week two.
After beating Cross, 13-6, the Wolves were beaten 24-6 by Cane Bay of Summerville, Berkeley handed Timberland its last defeat, 35-13 at home. Since then the Wolves have won three straight shutouts including Lake Marion, 48-0, Franklin Christian, 38-0 and Bishop England, 13-0. Hanahan lost a home game to the Wolves, 41-35 and beat Manning in the last regular season game in the woods at St. Stephens, 28-27.
In post season play Timberland beat Loris 21-6 at home and stopped Gilbert last week to earn a shot at the Wildcats, which brings to mind a game that Wildcat fans would like to forget.
In 2011, the 12-0 Wildcats hosted the Wolves in the third round and at the time had given up only 18 points all season, 9 in the regular season and 9 more in the first two rounds of the playoffs.
A tragic accident took the life of senior Jake David and the funeral was held earlier on the day of the game and football had to be the furtherest thing away from the minds of his teammates. After the Wildcats had putt 568 points on the scoreboard all season and the team, behind the rushing of Jabo Lee, rushed for over 2600 yards, Timberland out-gained the Cats 204 to 156 yards and Alex Krall, who had not kicked a field goal all season, hit the game winner from 41 yards out with 10 seconds remaining, to escape with an 18-15 victory.
That loss lives on today and almost five years to date, Dillon enters the contest 11 and 1, while the Wolves have a 9-3 record. The winner will go on to face either Bluffton of Brookland Cayce for the Lower State Championship and since the Lower State winner had the home field advantage a year ago, this year the upper state team will be at home.
Head Coach Art Craig was impressed with the way his team kept their poise and after falling to a 21-7 deficit, a spark by his special team late in the game lit a fire under his team. Speedster Kevin Williams returned a kickoff up the middle of the field for 86 yards and a touchdown and from there, it was vintage Timberland power football. What does his team have for Dillon?
“Dillon is the model football program in Class 2A and 3A,” Craig said. “We have struggled with them in the past, but I’m not going to count my kids out. We’re going to throw everything at them, including the kitchen sink and see can get to the second half, close.” Quarterback Jaquez Mitchell will be the signal caller in the contest and running out of the backfield will be 5’10, 185 pound senior running back, Jermaine Gadsden and Williams, who stands at 5’7 and weighs 175 pounds.
In the meantime Dillon’s Brayden Hawkins has thrown 1,967 yards and 25 touchdowns, including 199 yards and three TD passes to senior wide receiver KaNore McKinnon in last week’s 51-19 win over Strom Thurmond. McKinnon will play in the old North-South all star game in Myrtle Beach in December. Johnny Allen, even though he didn’t get a call in post season play as an all star, he is three yards shy of 1,400 yards rushing and has 25 TDs to his credit. Defensively, Shrine Bowler Jermaine McDaniel, will anchor the defensive line at one of the end positions and junior Zareon Hayes will be on the other end, both with 72 total tackles apiece and 11-1/2 QB sacks between them.
Be sure to make a special effort to be at Memorial Stadium early, because this will be one of the premier games of the week in the area and a large crowd is expected!
