By Lonnie Turner
The Dillon Wildcats romped past the Battling Bishops of Bishop England, 43-12, Friday night to earn a crack at the Gilbert Indians next week-end at their home field near Lexington. Both teams are a perfect 12-0 and the Indians got to the matchup with Dillon by handily defeating Bluffton, 48-21. The Wildcats rolled up 515 total offense against Bishop England while the Nasty Cat Defense pretty much held the Battling Bishops at bay, allowing only 67 total yards on the ground and 97 in the air for a net gain of 164 yards.
In addition to having three touchdowns called back for holding penalties, the Wildcats were whistled 7 other times for major penalties on the way to a total of 125 yards walked off by the officials, compared to only three fouls by the Bishops in the entire football game for 25 yards. The 125 yards runs the total for the Wildcats for the season to 1,164 and a record number of 131 penalties that shattered the record of 129 walked off against the 2008 Wildcats.
The Wildcats jumped off to a 14-0 lead in the first quarter after feeling the Bishops out for two possessions that resulted in three and outs. Corrian Wright scored from a yard out to get on the board first to climax a 70-yard scoring drive. Jalen Williams, who finished the night with 218 yards on 27 carries, coupled with quarterback Jay Lester’s passes in the drive, took the majority of the total yards. After holding the Bishops to no yards following the initial score, the Wildcats stormed back with a 45-yard drive on three plays and two minutes, with Lester passing to Ty Rogers for a two-yard touchdown. Williams had set the score up with a 29 yard run on first down.
Leo Albano, The touted quarterback, who leads the Bishops in rushing and scoring for the season could muster up only 12 total yards rushing in the first half, and completed five of nine passes for 66 yards. The Wildcats held him to 34 net yards rushing and 97 yards through the air for the game.
Lester completed 13 of his 20 passes for a total of 175 yards and three touchdowns and chalked up 99 yards rushing to finish as the second leading rusher behind Williams. He threw two TD passes to Wright and a third to Ahmari Huggins-Bruce in the game to bump his scoring passes to 18 for the season. His total yards passing is up to 1,526 yards, which is an average of 127 yards per game.
Williams has topped the rushing chart with 1,445 yards this season on 186 touches and has scored 15 times, which leads all running backs, in both categories.
Lester connected with Huggins-Bruce on a 30-yard shuffle pass to go up 21-0 before Bishop England could score late in the second quarter on a 42-yard pass from Albano to Chris Dengler. The try for the point after by place kicker Jarren McCoy was blocked by Dray Thompson.
Ahmad Dawad made a little history in the Wildcat kicking game by kicking his second record breaking field goal or the season to put the Cats up 24-6 with only 27 seconds remaining in the first half. He has been successful on four of five attempts this season and has hit 61 of 69 PATs.
Bishop England scored first in the second half on a two yard run by Albano on the first Bishops offensive series. The big play on the drive was a 15-yard personal foul call against the Wildcats that set up a first down at the Dillon twelve. Reggie Thompson broke up the PAT for the second time when he went high into the air to intercept the try for a two-point conversion.
After that, the Wildcats ran off three more touchdowns, scoring 12 points in the third and seven more in the fourth. Shamar McCollum scooped up a fumble at the Bishop England 24 and ran it into the end-zone near the end of the game, but a block in the back nullified the return, giving the Cats a first down at the 14. Lester took a knee on the first play after the fumble to run out the clock.
The defense set up the fifth touchdown for the Cats when Corrian Wright picked off his third pass interception of the season at the Bishop’s 42-yard line. On the first play after the pick, Williams scored his first touchdown of the evening, going the 42 yards up the middle. Dawad was off to the right of the goal post for his first miss of the game and the Cats led, 30-12. In less than two minutes, Tae’Ran Bogin picked off his third interception and returned it 15 yards, only to have a holding penalty push the ball back to the BE 25. Lester was right on target with Ty Rogers for his third TD pass and the second for Rogers as the pass covered the 25 yards on first down. Williams ran his second touchdown of the game on a 14-yard sprint with 3:42 left in the game. The three interceptions by the Dillon defense leaves the 2017 team two short of the total of 24 turned in by the 1976 Wildcats and in second place in the record book, by-passing the 2013 team which had 20 for the year. Individually, Ty’Quan Porter, who has 10, is one pick away from passing Kendall Williams who had 10 in the 2004 season.
The Wildcats will hit the road next week for Gilbert and Coach Hayes said he didn’t want to get into the fix Bishop England got into on the way to Dillon with I-95 construction, so the team will be leaving a 2 o’clock. Bishop England arrived at the Memorial Stadium at nearly 7 o’clock and had little time to do pregame warm-ups. The team, a Catholic Private School from the Charleston area, didn’t bring a whole lot of fans to watch the game and the Wildcat stands weren’t as full as normal for a second-round game. The Wildcats missed being the first team in South Carolina to win five straight state championships by a mere 2 points and have won 12 straight this season. There have been more talented teams wearing the black and gold of Dillon High School, but I doubt seriously that there has been a team with as much drive as the 2017 team. Without a super star, the Cats manage to come up with someone to take up slack when another player has an off night. It might by Jalen Williams this week, Corrian Wright, Zareon Hayes, or even freshman Ahmari-Huggins-Bruce in the next game. You just never know about them. Hopefully we can have a great backing to travel to a few miles west of Lexington to take on the Indians of Gilbert. Just think about it! Dillon has to travel over 130 miles to play the number one rated 3A school in the state to get the right to play for the Lower State Championship. As it has been so many times, it would possibly be another match-up with the Timberland Wolves, should both teams win. They will have their hands full with Brookland-Cayce, a 35-13 winner over Wade Hampton, last week. Kowing it is early to leave for a 7:30 game, but one never knows about the construction around the big cities!
