‘Locked in and focused’: How North Myrtle Beach cruised in its first-round matchup
Winning playoff football games takes a strong rushing attack and defensive effort.
North Myrtle Beach had both in spades on Friday night, easily dispatching James Island 41-12 in the first round of the abbreviated 2020 Class 4A playoffs at The Hank. Take 404 yards of rushing, combine that with holding your opponent to just 62 rushing yards, and the result will generally show as it did for the No. 2 ranked team in Class 4A.
“This is how we built this team, to be able to play and win a game like this,” said Matt Reel, North Myrtle Beach’s head coach. “This is a team that works as hard during the week (at practice) as they do on Friday night. They want to do things right on the practice field and that shows when you come out and execute the way we did tonight.”
Execution began from the opening bell, when North Myrtle Beach kicked off to James Island, forced the Trojans to punt, then began to feed its rushing attack. Nyliek Livingston and Devin Montgomery combined for nearly 300 yards rushing and a quartet of scores, with Livingston compiling his first 200-yard game.
“I’ve never done anything close to this before,” he said following his dominant effort, which earned him two different Player of the Game trophies. “We work all week in film study and on the practice field to know what keys to read and where the holes are going to be. Tonight, my offensive line was amazing and I was able to have a big night; that’s a credit to those boys.”
With the rushing attack powering the day – four players scored a rushing touchdown for the Chiefs – the defense was able to take advantage of long drives by its offense to get after James Island. The Trojans start freshmen in the backfield and youth on the offensive line, which was getting its first taste of playoff football. It was quite an introduction, as the Trojans were held to under three yards per rush, punted seven times, and were victim to five tackles for loss.
“Our defense showed tonight what they can be when they’re locked in and focused on the mission in front of them,” Reel said. “It doesn’t matter who the opponent is on the other side, when our guys are getting multiple blue shirts to the ball and get after it like they did, we can be a really good unit. We try to take away the other team’s best player, but we let (Jaden Scott) have a big game and really couldn’t stop him tonight. Other than that, we played really well on that side of the ball.”
For Livingston and the Chief offense, the challenge of replicating the effort will remain at the forefront of their minds during preparation for the second round.
“This can’t be a one-time thing for us,” he said. “We’ve got to work even harder this week to get ready for another good team next week. At this point in the playoffs, any team can end your season and we don’t want that to be us. This is a great first round, but the first round isn’t our goal.”
North Myrtle Beach will play host to North Augusta next week, which outlasted May River in overtime.
JI – 0 6 0 6 – 12
NMB – 12 15 14 0 – 41
Scoring Summary
First Quarter
NMB – Nyliek Livingston 32-yard rush (2-point conversion failed) 5:50
NMB – Devin Montgomery 30-yard rush (Extra point failed) 2:57
Second Quarter
NMB – Livingston 16-yard rush (Cameron Freeman pass to Tyree Smith for 2-point conversion) 10:16
JI – Braxton Scott 39-yard pass to Jaden Scott (Extra point blocked) 2:47
NMB – Nick Moss 39-yard rush (Zane Smith kick good) 1:21
Third Quarter
NMB – Elijah Vereen 8-yard rush (Smith kick good) 8:23
NMB – Montgomery 15-yard rush (Smith kick good) 5:23
Fourth Quarter
JI – Braxton Scott 1-yard rush (2-point try failed) 4:39
Statistical Leaders
Passing
JI – Braxton Scott 18-35 218 yards 1TD, 1INT
NMB – Cameron Freeman 2-5 54 yards 0 TDs 1INT
Rushing
JI – Amontrae Scott 10-33
NMB – Nyliek Livingston 15-206 2TD
Receiving
JI – Jaden Scott 12-164 1TD
NMB – Nick Moss 2-45
Interceptions
JI – Gemoi Brown 1
NMB – Chandler McCall 1
Scores
Carolina Forest 35
At Goose Creek 28
Myrtle Beach 44
At South Aiken 17
At Oceanside Collegiate 31
Aynor 25
Socastee 28
Loris 0
Waccamaw 26
St. James 24
Ashley Ridge 27
Conway 7
