Conway overcomes early deficit, runs away from West Florence
The Graveyard was resurrected for one night, and the Conway Tigers were back to a familiar dominance.
Conway, coming off back-to-back 2-9 seasons, improved to 6-1 for the first time since 2008 with a Region VI-AAAA-opening 60-28 win over West Florence at Coastal Carolina’s Brooks Stadium. Conway played its home games at Coastal Carolina through 1999 before the school built a field at the high school, but the Tigers returned to their old stomping grounds for this game because of flood damage to the Tigers’ home field.
“We played up the fact that we were returning to The Graveyard,” longtime Conway coach Chuck Jordan said. “This was our place. I played here for four years as a player and coached here for 17. The funnest part for me was the ride out in the bus. I kind of felt like I was back in the old time. Once we got here obviously the venue is a little bit different than what The Graveyard was.”
The Graveyard is now Brooks Stadium, home to one of the top teams in the Football Championship Subdivision. On Friday night, Conway looked like it may be one of the top teams in South Carolina high school football and its junior quarterback Peyton Derrick played like one of the state’s top signal-callers. Derrick threw for 458 yards and seven touchdowns on the night, with 359 yards and six scores coming in the first half as the Tigers built a 48-21 lead. Malachi Miller, Darren Stanley and Jah-Maine Martin each caught two touchdown passes while USC commit Bryan Edwards had the other. Martin and Daiquawn Clark also had rushing scores.
“Our receiving corps is so underrated that it is ridiculous,” second-year starter Derrick said. “We had people making plays that don’t ever get in the spotlight. We have Bryan (Edwards) of course who makes crazy plays, so when teams start playing to cover Bryan it opens the door for a whole lot of people who don’t usually get a lot of credit. Malachi Miller had a great night. Darren Stanley had another great night. Our receiving corps comes to work every day. They are physical, hard runners, and they catch everything I throw to them.”
Things didn’t start well for Conway. Before the opening kickoff, the Tigers and Knights (1-6) set up for the kick on the wrong sides of the field, and the teams had to switch ends before the game could start. When it did, West Florence’s Mike Lowery returned the kick 67 yards to the Conway 22. Five plays later, Lowery made it 7-0 Knights with a 1-yard scoring run. On the Tigers’ opening offensive series, Conway fumbled away the ball on its second play. The Knights proceeded to drive 71 yards in seven plays and took a 14-0 lead just 4:22 into the game when Donte McElveen punched it in from the 1.
But the deficit didn’t last long. Conway responded quickly with touchdown drives lasting just 29, 22, and 49 seconds, respectively, on their next three offensive series.
“We got in a bind early on,” Jordan said. “… But I was real proud of our kids. We fought back out of it. That is good for us because you have to play from behind, you got to play in all kinds of situations.”
After West Florence went ahead 21-20 early in the second quarter, Derrick threw four touchdown passes before halftime as Conway scored the next 34 points.
“We had a lot of talent that came back that were young last year,” Derrick said. “We are just playing with a whole new attitude than last year and the year before. We are going into every game expecting to win and expecting to put up big numbers.”
Conway will look to keep rolling when it visits Socastee next Friday. The Tigers beat the Braves 43-8 in early September. West Florence will host Sumter next week.
“I know where I want to be and we are not there,” Jordan said. “We are not close yet. We still have a lot of work to do, and we have not done a lot of the little things. … Our goal is just to be a very good playoff team. In order to do that, we are going to have to improve every game and every week.”
West Florence | 14 | 7 | 7 | 0 | — | 28 |
Conway | 20 | 28 | 6 | 6 | — | 60 |
FIRST QUARTER
WF—Mike Lowery 10 run (Michael Hayes kick), 9:59
WF—Donte McElveen 1 run (Hayes kick), 7:38
C—Jah-Maine Martin 2 run (Brady Fulmer kick), 7:09
C—Malachi Miller 47 pass from Peyton Derrick (Fulmer kick), 4:43
C—Darren Stanley 49 pass from Derrick (kick failed), 2:36
SECOND QUARTER
WF—McElveen 1 run (Hayes kick), 9:50
C—Miller 6 pass from Derrick (Bryan Edwards pass from Derrick), 5:30
C—Stanley 23 pass from Derrick (kick failed), 4:35
C—Edwards 53 pass from Derrick (Fulmer kick), 2:33
C—Martin 63 pass from Derrick (Fulmer kick), 1:30
THIRD QUARTER
C—Martin 34 pass from Derrick (kick failed), 10:53
WF—Bowman Hiller 1 run (Hayes kick), 2:55
FOURTH QUARTER
C— Daiquawn Clark 1 run (kick failed), 1:24
▪ RUSHING: West Florence, Eron Darby 12-49, Mike Lowery 12-67, Markus Melvin 13-87, Donte McElveen 3-2, Bowman Hiller 4-(-1), James Haynes 1-1, Tirik Epps 5-36. Conway, Jah-Maine Martin 7-36, Peyton Derrick 5-54, Daiquawn Clark 16-86, Tyrone Bennett 1-0, Team 2-(-12), (#47) 3-9.
▪ PASSING: West Florence, Bowman Hiller 9-13-1-141, Drake Deal 0-1-1-0. Conway, Derrick 14-22-1-458.
▪ RECEIVING: West Florence, Ka’trion Cooper 3-61, Darby 2-28, Melvin 1-9, Epps 3-43. Conway, Darren Stanley 3-72, Malachi Miller 2-53, Bryan Edwards 4-80, Martin 2-97, Dandre Huggins 1-57, Malik Humes 1-8.
This story was originally published October 10, 2015 at 12:49 AM with the headline "Conway overcomes early deficit, runs away from West Florence."