Carolina Forest finishes non-region play with loss to state power Lexington
“Practice” is over.
Following a 41-21 loss to Lexington on Friday night, the Carolina Forest football team concluded a challenging non-region schedule with a 3-3 record.
Two of those losses – including Friday’s – came against Class AAAA teams ranked in the top 10 of the S.C. Prep Media Football Poll released earlier this week. One of the wins came against area rival Myrtle Beach, which entered the week ranked No. 8 in Class AAA.
None of that matters now, though, Panthers coach Marc Morris reiterated. Carolina Forest will enter a bye week before hosting Socastee in its Region VI-AAAA opener Oct. 9.
“I’ve told you guys this several times already: Non-region play is just practice until you get to region,” he said. “The real season starts here in two weeks and hopefully we’ll be ready to go.”
After a scoreless first quarter, the Panthers took a 7-0 lead in the second quarter on a 22-yard run by Dyverse Simmons.
After the Wildcats tied it at 7, Lexington’s Matthew Boring intercepted a Matt Beale middle screen pass inside the Carolina Forest 10. The play set up the second Lexington touchdown in a 2-minute span and keyed a 27-0 run.
“We played pretty well in the first quarter and a half,” Morris said. “After that we started playing poorly.”
And Lexington –ranked 10th in this week’s media poll – started flexing its muscle.
“They’ve got a good team,” Morris said. “They ran the ball pretty well on us. … They controlled the ball and did a good job. They’ve got a good football team. They’re well coached and they played well.”
Despite getting down big, the Panthers kept fighting before coming up short in yet another matchup against a state power.
“We’ve got a good group of young men who ain’t going to quit. They keep battling,” Morris said. “When you keep playing these top-10 teams, you’ve just got to play better and be more consistent. We played great at times and not so great at times. But I’m real proud of our kids.
“Hopefully they learned a lot from this loss and we’ll move on.”
Simmons ran for 121 yards and a pair of scores and Drake Stone ran for 96 yards and a touchdown to account for Carolina Forest’s scoring.
Carolina Forest | 0 | 7 | 7 | 7 | — | 41 |
Home | 0 | 27 | 7 | 7 | — | 21 |
SECOND QUARTER
CF – Simmon 22 run (Kane kick), 8:16
L – Hopper 23 pass from Blake (Kinsley kick) , 6:52
L – Carroll 30 run (Kinsley kick), 4:57
L – Carroll 6 run (kick failed), 3:24
L – Carroll 12 run (Kinsley kick), 43.2
THIRD QUARTER
CF – Simmon 5 run (Kane kick), 10:49
L – Blake 3 run (Kinsley kick), 9:52
FOURTH QUARTER
L – Baker 32 run (Kinsley kick), 11:15
CF – Stone 5 run (Kane kick), 28.7
▪ RUSHING: CF: Simmons 21-121, Beale 11-10, Stone 18-96, Lynch 1-(-1), Leonard 1-2. Totals: 52-228; L: Carroll 16-144, Blake 6-63, Green 4-(-1), Baker 2-26, Davis 2-9, Jacobs 1-2, TEAM 1-3. Total: 31-249.
▪ PASSING: CF: Beale 5-18-2-17, Leonard 2-4-0-23. Totals: 7-22-2-40; L: Blake 7-16-0-58, Baker 1-1-0-21. Totals: 8-17-0-79.
▪ RECEIVING: CF: Lynch 2-10, Woods 2-(-1), Garrell 1-13, McDowell 1-10, Elko 1-8. L: Hopper 3-46, Graves 1-(-1), Rumph 1-21, Wells 1-12, Shadewald 1-5.
The (Columbia) State contributed to this story.
This story was originally published September 25, 2015 at 10:56 PM with the headline "Carolina Forest finishes non-region play with loss to state power Lexington."