Opportunistic Myrtle Beach cruises past St. James

Drayton Arnold and his teammates did their best to stay patient during a non-region slate in which they were roughed up by bigger teams.

Get into the crux of the season, Myrtle Beach coaches told them, and all the work could pay off. Once again, the brutal early portion of the schedule is starting to fade.

The Seahawks dispatched St. James 48-17 at Doug Shaw Memorial Stadium on Friday night, in the process elevating themselves into sole possession of first place in Region VII-AAA with two regular-season games to go.

In other words, exactly the spot where they hoped they could get to at this point of the year.

“This is kind of what all of us have been expecting,” Arnold said after his 237-yard, four-touchdown performance. “It came around kind of late. But as far as execution, it’s improved so much since Week 1 and Week 2.”

Some of that is playing smaller teams; there are no more Class AAAA squads that filled the September slate ahead. Some of it is the emergence of receiver Elijah Rice, who caught three more Arnold touchdown passes and now has eight in eight games.

A huge chunk of credit, though, has to be given to the defense. Case in point: forcing five St. James turnovers.

“We’ve been playing good in spurts and bad in spurts,” Myrtle Beach coach Mickey Wilson said. “I felt like [Friday] we really played good in spurts for long periods of time. We had times when we lost mental focus, but I’m really pleased with our guys. We did a good job on execution, and we played with great physicality.”

The Seahawks (5-3 overall, 3-0 Region VII-AAA) recovered three St. James fumbles and picked off Sharks quarterback Zach Werba two more times. Considering St. James entered the game with just seven turnovers in its first seven games, and the figure was an anomaly of sorts.

But the timing of all five were also crucial.

The first came on a fumble late in the opening quarter with Myrtle Beach already up 14-0. Then, with St. James (4-4, 1-2) driving and looking for last-second points toward the end of the first half, Rice stepped in on defense and picked off Werba to end any real threat.

At the start of the second half, it only got worse for St. James. Each of the Sharks’ first three possessions after the break ended with a turnover. During that stretch, Myrtle Beach grew its lead from 17 points to 31.

“It just snowballed for us,” St. James coach Robby Brown said. “You can’t do that against anybody. We moved the ball. But we stopped ourselves. They got momentum.”

Even though St. James accounted for 16 total first downs and Werba threw for 268 yards, most of both turned out to be fruitless.

Instead, Myrtle Beach’s opportunistic style helped propel it to another lopsided score and huge offensive numbers from Arnold, Rice and tailback Brandon Sinclair (219 yards, three touchdowns).

That type of production in mid-October is resonating much louder than anything that happened before three weeks ago.

“When you get to this point,” Wilson said, “it becomes huge.”

This story was originally published October 16, 2015 at 11:28 PM with the headline "Opportunistic Myrtle Beach cruises past St. James."