Conway routs Carolina Forest to cap big regular-season turnaround

Chuck Jordan can close the book on the 2015 regular season knowing his team exceeded expectations from pretty much everyone, including probably a few within his own ranks.

After a pair of dreadful seasons, Conway will head to the playoffs at 9-2 following a 33-0 victory over Carolina Forest on Friday night. The Tigers had a huge night on the ground and the defense, despite giving up plenty of yards, never allowed the Panthers to punch one into the end zone.

The result was a locker room with the bass kicked up an extra notch and a whole bunch of smiles for a team that can start preparing for the postseason.

“One of our goals was to flip our season,” Jordan said. “We were 2-9. Now we’re 9-2. So we flipped it. I’m proud of our kids for that. That’s something that you really needed to convince them to believe in.”

The nine wins this year are actually as many as Conway had in the past three years combined. And the method in which the Tigers dispatched their rival showed why there has been so much improvement.

Two weeks after losing all-everything receiver Bryan Edwards to a knee injury, Conway returned some to its Ground Chuck play-calling of old. Senior running back Jah’Maine Martin went for 137 yards and three first-half scores. Tyrone Bennett, a senior who started the year at receiver before moving into the backfield, rushed for 133 yards and a score.

Quarterback Peyton Derrick, who wasn’t asked to throw like he has been, added another 32 yards and a touchdown on a night in which the area’s leading passer threw just 10 times for 69 yards.

The two tailbacks set the tone with long runs early. Moments into the second quarter, Martin had touchdown carries of 60 and 29 yards, and Bennett had a 45-yard scamper of his own. It more than nullified what was a heavy time of possession advantage Carolina Forest built up, in part because of 30 Dyverse Simmons carries that totaled 212 yards.

Unlike a week ago, when Sumter clinched the region championship after five Quintein Anderson touchdown runs led to a win over Conway, none of the talented Panthers running backs’ yards resulted in a touchdown.

“We came into this game with the mindset we’re not going to let these boys score,” Conway senior linebacker Austin Manchester said. “We knew they were going to try to run the ball down our throats because they saw the Sumter film. … In practice, we worked twice as hard to stop the run. In the red zone, we stopped it.

“We’re definitely not OK with [with all the rushing yards against it]. But they didn’t get into the end zone. That’s our goal.”

Succeeding in that helped Conway improve to 14-3 all time against Carolina Forest. A bigger concern for the Panthers is the week they’ll have to sit idle before finding out their playoff fate. There are only two Class AAAA games this coming Friday. However, each involves at least one team whose points will ultimately affect the Panthers’ standing in the playoff hunt.

Marc Morris’ squad will finish in fourth place in Region VI-AAAA, meaning it will have to rely upon an at-large bid in order to make the playoffs for the first time since moving to the state’s largest class in 2008.

“You have to plan it like it is going to go your way,” Morris said. “When you have a game like this, there are a lot of things you can fix on yourself. There are things to make us better. … We didn’t get that done. So we’ll see what happens.”

Conway won’t have much to worry about. It’s almost assured that the Tigers will open the Class AAAA, Division II playoffs at home on Nov/ 20.

They’ll be a higher-seeded team playing on their own field, having won more regular-season games than any Conway team since 2008.

“This team can be the team to take it all the way to Columbia,” Manchester said. “And we can start it right here at the Backyard.”

This story was originally published November 6, 2015 at 10:47 PM with the headline "Conway routs Carolina Forest to cap big regular-season turnaround."