Aynor offense shut down in blowout loss to Lake View

The Grand Strand’s highest-powered offense was shut down.

The Aynor Blue Jackets – who entered Friday night averaging 43 points and 337 yards per game – just had no answers for a stout Lake View team.

The Wild Gators got a huge boost from Delvon Bethea, who had three touchdowns in the first half, as they entered halftime leading by five scores and held off the Blue Jackets for a 44-8 victory Friday.

“They’re just a lot better than we expected them to be,” Aynor coach Jody Jenerette said. “It’s frustrating because we score a bunch of points and we just got absolutely shut down tonight by a good football team. It’s tough; not what we expected to happen, obviously.”

The Blue Jackets would have been shut out had they not found the scoreboard with two seconds left on a 1-yard run by Colie Rodgers.

Also, Aynor (3-2) doomed itself Friday by trying its hand at punting. The Blue Jackets hardly ever punt the ball away, so when they did Friday it was quite eventful.

Bethea returned a 60-yard punt for a touchdown just under three minutes into the first quarter for Lake View’s first score of the game as it went up 8-0 quickly. Then, Bethea scored on an 85-yard punt return with about five minutes left in the first half to give Lake View a 28-0 advantage.

However, Aynor punter Caleb Jenerette had a beautiful punt to pin the Wild Gators inside their own 5-yard line, but that was about the only bright spot in a dismal night for the Blue Jackets’ special teams unit.

“We don’t ever punt and obviously you see why now,” Jody Jenerette said. “We should’ve covered it better; that’s my fault, it’s all on coaching. I should’ve coached them better how to cover it but we hardly ever do that. If we leave that punt inbounds, it’s usually a big return and they got two off it and it just kind of hits you hard.”

Along with his two long punt returns, Bethea caught a 35-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Duane Nichols in the second quarter. Bethea finished with three touchdowns and racked up 222 all-purpose yards.

“We call him ‘Biggie.’ That’s what everyone knows him as and he had a ballgame that we expect out of him,” Lake View coach Daryl King said. “We weren’t sure if they would ever punt; we didn’t see them punt on film. We dropped [Bethea] back and he fielded it off the ground both times and we had good blocking and everything for him and he had a couple of monster returns with great blocking in front of him.”

Lake View’s defense held Aynor to just 128 yards.

“I’m very proud of our defense tonight; they stepped up. We challenged them all week,” said King, whose team had 239 yards on offense. “We knew Aynor has a very prolific offense and that single wing [formation] they run is very tough to defend. You don’t ever know where the ball is. It’s all about playing your keys, playing your position and trusting what we’ve done all week and we did it.”

Zach Todd led the way for Aynor with 46 yards on 10 carries and Rodgers had eight carries for 29 yards and a touchdown.

The Blue Jackets had just 55 yards at halftime.

“I was numb about halfway through the first half,” Jody Jenerette said. “We had a great week in practice. I know that sounds bad, but we had a great week in practice. I thought our guys were ready to play but [Lake View] is just a lot better than we are, I can tell you that. Not because our kids didn’t try, I think it’s one of those nights where they did everything right and we couldn’t do anything right.”

And Aynor is going to need a lot to go its way if it wants to keep up with perennial powerhouse and rival Dillon next Friday.

Jody Jenerette knows that the Wildcats – the defending Class AA state champions – are going to give his squad a hard time and will be gunning for a quick start like Lake View had Friday night.

“If we can just survive next week, then we got a chance when we get to [Region VIII-AA play] because our region is probably not as strong as it’s been in the past,” Jenerette said. “So if we can just survive next week, we’ll come back the following week ready to compete.”

This story was originally published September 26, 2015 at 12:14 AM with the headline "Aynor offense shut down in blowout loss to Lake View."