Myrtle Beach rallies back, runs away from West Florence

Early in the second quarter, the West Florence Knights were gashing the Myrtle Beach defense with their Wing T running game and had grabbed a 17-7 lead. The Seahawks entered the game coming off a 24-3 loss in their opener to Charlotte Christian (N.C.), and, for the moment, an 0-2 start was a real possibility for the proud Myrtle Beach program.

Myrtle Beach turned it around in dramatic fashion, though, unleashing a balanced attack led by running back Brandon Sinclair to score 28 straight points on the way to a convincing 42-24 victory over the Knights at Doug Shaw Memorial Stadium on Friday night.

“What I love about what just happened is we had a lot of adversity in the first half (and) our kids handled it,” Myrtle Beach coach Mickey Wilson said. “We made a lot of mistakes tonight but I felt like our kids just kept fighting, kept battling no matter the situation. Even though there was some bad situations, we were able to break through and get a win and that’s the most important thing.”

Sinclair finished with 238 yards on 26 carries with three touchdowns while quarterback Drayton Arnold found wide receiver Keyonte Sessions for a pair of touchdown strikes. The Seahawks tallied 261 yards rushing while Arnold completed 12 of 25 passes for 206 yards.

“We were pretty balanced tonight,” Wilson said. “Brandon Sinclair was phenomenal tonight especially when he got into the second and third levels breaking tackles – just phenomenal. It makes it tough when they have to defend the run and the pass.”

It certainly was a bad situation in the first half for the Seahawks. Behind the tough running of shifty back Eron Darby, a 5-foot-8, 172-pound senior, the Knights (1-1) had rolled up 208 yards rushing and took a 17-7 lead when Darby scored on a 6-yard run on the second play of the second quarter. West Florence had scored on all three of its possessions.

Then, Myrtle Beach Defensive Coordinator Jason Owens gathered his defenders on the bench for some refocusing.

“The offense they run is very, very hard to duplicate in practice, that Wing T, and it’s hard to give our defensive players a look,” Wilson said. “They kind of had to settle in and get used to the speed of it. Once they did that I thought they played really well the second half.”

After allowing 261 yards rushing on 30 carries in the first half, the Seahawks limited the Knights to 85 yards on 21 carries in the second half.

Meanwhile, Sinclair and company got rolling. The 5-10, 191-pound senior scored on the Seahawks’ next two drives, on runs of 15 and 16 yards, to give Myrtle Beach a 21-17 halftime lead.

Owens’ defense got into the act early in the third quarter when Anthoni Taylor scooped up a Markus Melvin fumble on a toss sweep and returned it 11 yards for a touchdown, giving the Seahawks a 28-17 lead with 8:43 left in the third quarter.

The Seahawks struck quickly on their next possession, moving 80 yards in just three plays. Arnold found Sessions on a quick out, with Sessions breaking free down the sideline and putting on a spin move at the 20-yard line to avoid a defender on the way to a 48-yard touchdown. Suddenly, the Seahawks led 35-17 with 3:51 left in the third quarter.

“Our kids believe in themselves, we work extremely hard and the one thing we always preach to our guys is to handle adversity and handle it together,” Wilson said. “No matter the situation stick together and they did that tonight.”

Ka’tron Cooper pulled the Knights within 35-24 on a 5-yard touchdown reception from Bowman Hiller late in the third quarter, but Sinclair capped his night with a 14-yard touchdown run on the Seahawks next drive to cap the scoring.

This story was originally published September 5, 2015 at 12:41 AM with the headline "Myrtle Beach rallies back, runs away from West Florence."