St. James clinches first winning season in school history, playoff spot with victory
Robby Brown’s team finished off its check list Friday night.
It might just be time to add some more goals to that list.
Jay-Mion Pressley ran in a touchdown from 2 yards out late in the fourth quarter to lift St. James to a 16-14 win over Lake City that clinched the school’s first-ever winning season and a playoff spot.
Brown said the Sharks had three goals at the start of the season -- beat rival Socastee (check), complete a winning season (check) and make the playoffs (check).
“I’m proud of the team,” Brown said. “We set three goals this year and we’ve accomplished all three. I’m proud of the kids. They’ve worked hard and put forth more effort. It was a great win for each of these kids at St. James.”
With the win, St. James (6-4, 3-2 Region VII-AAA) earned the third seed out of the region. It didn’t come easy, however.
“We made a lot of mistakes in the kicking game with snapping the ball and offensively we had a lot of penalties,” Brown said. “We didn’t play a real good game. But we told the kids we’re just going to keep grinding. We can’t play any worse.
“Our defense created several turnovers tonight. They were huge in getting the ball back. We weren’t doing much on offense, but we played really good on defense.”
Zach Werba scored on a 3-yard run for St. James’ other touchdown and Charles Overson added a field goal as the Sharks escaped with the biggest win in school history.
“I’m extremely proud of them,” Brown said. “They haven’t quit. They’ve stuck it out to the end. They believe in themselves and each other. It’s a special team and I couldn’t be more proud of them.”
The recipe for a school-record season wasn’t anything special, Brown said.
“We had several returning starters coming back and you can’t replace experience,” Brown said. “Every day they work hard and want to get better. They stuck it out. They believed they could win and they played hard.”
Because of postponed games, the Sharks will have an extra week before the playoff start. Brown said he’ll give his players Monday off for a three-day weekend before getting back to working on fundamentals for the week. A week from Monday, St. James will begin a typical game week, he said.
“We’ll eventually find out who we’re playing,” Brown said. “Then we’ll get film on them and go to work on a normal week and take it one game at a time.”
This story was originally published October 31, 2015 at 12:24 AM with the headline "St. James clinches first winning season in school history, playoff spot with victory."