Too much rest? How Green Sea Floyds responded in playoff opener against St. John’s

Donnie Kiefer made his expectations for his team known all week: “Fresh and focused.”

His Green Sea Floyds football team was just that on Friday, eviscerating St. John’s 65-0 in the second round of the Class A playoffs. The Trojans (10-1) needed only one play to go ahead of the Islanders (4-7), taking advantage of great field position courtesy of Aaron Graham’s long return on the opening kickoff, which led to Jaquan Dixon’s 42-yard touchdown run. Dixon would score three more times in the first quarter, with a safety thrown in for good measure, to give the Trojans a 20-0 lead after 12 minutes of action.

“Coming off basically three weeks off, you never know how the players are going to respond to game action,” Kiefer said following the win. “We practiced hard and got to implement some new things during the break, but there’s always a concern that the guys are going to lose focus or come out flat in some area. Thankfully, we didn’t see any of that tonight.”

If the first quarter went the way of Green Sea Floyds, the second quarter was the icing on the Trojans’ cake, with 24 points scored including a defensive touchdown and another safety. Both safeties occurred off poor punts by St. John’s.

AJ Campbell, a Touchstone Energy Bowl North-South All Star, started the scoring in the second quarter with a 1-yard run, then quarterback/safety Bubba Elliott returned an interception 36-yards for a score and Aaron Graham scored his first of two rushing touchdowns to build a 44-0 halftime advantage.

“We were able to play a lot of guys tonight and get playoff experience for some younger players,” Kiefer said. “We certainly didn’t set out to score that many points – I don’t like scoring that much – but we brought in some younger guys who were excited to make plays when they had the chance.”

As part of calling off the dogs, Kiefer removed his starting offense at halftime and played backups across the defense for much of the second half. It didn’t matter, as the Trojans still managed three touchdowns in the half with a running clock working against them.

Included in the second half scoring was a scoop-and-score on the half’s first kickoff. The bounding kick was mishandled by St. John’s, scooped up and then fumbled by the Islanders, and landed within range of the Trojans’ Grayson Carroll, who rumbled three yards for the score to make it a 51-0 game.

Two runs, a 65-yarder by Graham and a 62-yarder by Dan Johnson, came when the Trojans were simply running the ball up the middle with reserve players.

Having last played on Oct. 25 in a 62-7 win over Hemingway, the Trojans were well prepared and rested for the contest. All other Horry County teams moved their games from Friday night to Thursday due to a weather forecast that correctly predicted rain all day on Friday. Part of Kiefer’s strategy to remove his starters in the game was to protect them from potential injuries late in the game when field conditions worsened due to additional rain throughout the first half.

“There’s no benefit to one of our guys staying in the game late to add stats and getting an ankle or knee (injury),” he said. “I’d much rather have those stats for our guys in our next game and have them cheer on their teammates who have worked hard all year.”

Next week, the Trojans will host C.E. Murray in the third round of the Class A playoffs.

SJ – 0 0 0 0 – 0

GSF 20 24 14 7 – 65

Scoring Summary

First Quarter

GSF – Jaquan Dixon 42-yard run (Extra point failed) 11:36

GSF – Bubba Elliott 25-yard pass to Jaquan Dixon (2-point conversion failed) 4:20

GSF – Team safety 1:55

GSF – Jaquan Dixon 10-yard run (2-point conversion failed) 00:34

Second Quarter

GSF – AJ Campbell 1-yard run (Elliott pass to Ethan Damron for 2-point) 6:20

GSF – Bubba Elliott 36-yard interception return (Freddie Saratto kick good) 5:19

GSF – Aaron Graham 1-yard run (Saratto kick) 3:30

GSF – Team safety 1:32

Third Quarter

GSF – Grayson Carroll 3-yard fumble return (Saratto kick) 11:52

GSF – Aaron Graham 65-yard run (Saratto kick) 00:19

Fourth Quarter

GSF – Dan Johnson 62-yard run (Saratto kick) 8:28

Statistical Leaders

Passing

SJ – Jordan Brown 2-5-11-0-1

GSF – Bubba Elliott 1-1-25-1-0

Rushing

SJ – Robert Fields 8-49

GSF – Jaquan Dixon 5-83 2TDs

Receiving

SJ - Sean Lowry 2-12

GSF – Jaquan Dixon 1-25 TD