Socastee offense sputters in loss to West Brunswick (N.C.)

Socastee coach Doug Illing knows that switching to a spread offense with a young squad isn’t going to be an easy transition.

And it was evident Friday night.

West Brunswick (N.C.) led by only six points at halftime but the run-heavy Trojans pulled away in the second half for a 25-13 victory over Socastee in the Braves’ first game with a spread offense after running the triple option in recent years.

“We showed we’re a young, inexperienced team. We’ve got a lot of work to do,” said Illing, whose squad has one of the smallest groups of returning starters in the area while playing in the state’s largest class. “We can’t be disappointed, though; we just need reps. We had a tough week in practice with all the thunderstorms. But when you’re a spread offense [and] trying to throw the ball, you need those [outdoor] reps to fine tune everything. If you can’t get outside and do that it makes it tough and it showed tonight.”

Said Braves receiver Taylor Karnap: “We’re a young team. We’re still getting used to things and we’ve got a lot of players stepping in. It’ll come, though.”

While the Braves’ offense struggled at times Friday, Socastee’s defense allowed two West Brunswick halfbacks to rush for over 100 yards each. Maliek King had 107 yards and two touchdowns on 13 carries and Shikeem Hill ran for 112 yards and a score on 23 carries.

The Trojans ran the ball over 50 times on the night, picking up over 275 yards.

“We came in and wanted to run the ball down their throats,” Hill said. “It worked out, too. We stepped it up, we came out here and tried to work hard because we hadn’t beat Socastee in five years or whatever. We’ve been working hard every day in practice and it paid off tonight.”

Meanwhile, a positive to draw from Socastee’s new offense was the connection of quarterback Brandon Goswick and Karnap. Goswick was 7-for-19 for 183 yards and Karnap had 175 yards on six catches.

Karnap caught a 52-yard touchdown pass from Goswick with about nine minutes left in the fourth quarter to cut the Braves’ deficit to 12.

However, King ran for his second score of the night with under three minutes to go to put the Trojans up 25-6.

Then, Goswick scored on a 3-yard rush with 19 seconds left, but it was too little too late as West Brunswick closed out its first win over the Braves in six years.

“We fought back and didn’t give up,” Karnap said. “I thought Brandon placed the ball really well. He gave me some really good chances so [my performance] is all because of him.”

The Braves had three turnovers before halftime and finished with four, which Illing said was huge in his team not being able to capitalize in the first half.

“Sloppy field and sloppy conditions made it tough,” he said. “We had a lot of dropped balls in critical scoring positions. You can’t beat teams when you put yourself in scoring positions and turn it over and have critical penalties. Our kids made plays, though; we just had some bad, bad breaks.”

Said Karnap: “We turned the ball over too much and we let this wet grass and rain get into our head a little too much.”

The Braves have a long season to fix their miscues, and Illing believes it only gets better from here.

“Our defense did a great job,” he said. “They kept us in it and played their guts out; they just got tired there at the end. They were out on the field too long and our offense couldn’t stay out on the field and score. It’s a team and you need to feed off each other; the defense did everything they could. The offense will [get better] with time; we’re just young.”

Karnap also has confidence this group can start clicking.

“We’ve got to work hard in practice,” Karnap said. “We’ve got to get used to this spread offense and start making things happen.”

Said Illing: “We’re going to line it up and do it again next week.”

This story was originally published August 22, 2015 at 12:27 AM with the headline "Socastee offense sputters in loss to West Brunswick (N.C.)."