Carvers Bay comes up short against Barnwell in third round of playoffs

Barnwell coach Dwayne Garrick breathed a sigh of relief right after the clock hit quadruple zeros at Carvers Bay on Friday as his Warhorses fought their way to a 17-6 victory in the third round of the Class 2A playoffs.

“When you get to this point, a win is a win,” Garrick said. “We didn’t throw the ball well tonight, but we didn’t have to with the third-and-short and fourth-and-short situations we found ourselves in tonight.

“I thought they (Carvers Bay) did a great job defensively and really made things tough on our passing game. Our kids dug, clawed and scratched to do everything we could do to get the win.”

For the Bears (9-4) the loss comes with a silver lining – they were able to get their young players experience in the playoffs.

“Inexperience is the name of the game,” said head coach Nate Thompson. “We had some younger guys out there trying their best, but it changes the dynamics. We have 38 players on our team and only eight seniors. We’re going to use this going into next season.”

Barnwell started the game with a methodical four-minute drive, with zero passing attempts.

Keyshawn Jenkins would cap the drive with a 17-yard touchdown run. Carvers Bay would respond in the second quarter when reserve quarterback Nathan Martin tossed a jump ball to DiJon Goss for a 21-yard touchdown. A two-point conversion attempt would fall short, and the Bears wouldn’t score again.

“We were a little short on offense tonight, but that’s part of the game,” Thompson said. “They came to play and did a great job; we just didn’t have No. 11 (starting QB Janaz Sumpter) or No. 2 (Levi White). They fought hard and battled. We had to depend on some younger kids and some of them came through. All in all, they didn’t quit on us and that’s all I asked from them tonight.”

Before the first half ended, Barnwell would add a 32-yard field goal from Nathaniel Toole to take a 10-6 lead.

The second half of action saw sloppy play from both offenses and mistakes compounding into turnovers and huge losses of yards. Carvers Bay had three snaps go over the head of quarterback John Fraiser III, two of which were losses of more than 10 yards.

“My hat’s off to Barnwell, they came to play and battled us,” Thompson said. “We needed some things to break our way and that just didn’t happen or when it did we didn’t capitalize on it. We’ll learn from this one.”

The only score of the second half came from the legs of Mykal Lee, Barnwell’s bruising running back, from one yard out. He would break a 51-yard run down to the Carvers Bay one-yard line, but Barnwell fumbled before it could capitalize on the prime field position.

The Warhorses (12-1) advance in the playoffs and Garrick has no concerns about how his team will handle the next round.

“Just getting the ‘W’ this time of year is good stuff,” he said. “We turned it over a few times and got bogged down inside the red zone two or three times, so we weren’t sharp on offense tonight. It’s not the points as much as trying to get the separation between us and them, a big play or two and they could’ve taken the lead. Points are valuable this time of year, but I wouldn’t have cared if it was 17-16, a win is a win.”

Carvers Bay will turn its focus to next season, while Barnwell will face Batesburg-Leesville in the Lower State final of Class 2A.

This story was originally published December 2, 2016 at 10:49 PM with the headline "Carvers Bay comes up short against Barnwell in third round of playoffs."