COLUMBIA – The threat of an approaching Hurricane Helene forced the Blythewood football team to play Spring Valley two days earlier than planned.
Maybe the Bengals could’ve used an extra day’s practice, but they had enough in the tank to beat their Region 5-5A rival Vikings 35-13 Wednesday night and bounce back from a shutout loss to Westwood Sept. 20.
“Anytime you pick up a win, it’s good. Doesn’t matter if it’s region or not,” head coach James Martin said. “We didn’t get in a rhythm in the first half. We did a lot of things that were not us, that’s disappointing for us, for me as the head coach and the DC. But we made stops when we had to. All the mistakes that we made we’ve got to fix, or it’s not going to be a good region for us.”
John Henry Collins opened the game at Blythewood’s District Two Stadium with a couple of lackluster series, but threw four touchdown passes and completed 11 of 19 passes for 244 yards. Three of those TD passes went to Carter Coleman, who had four catches for 126 yards.
Collins had two interceptions, but the Bengals’ defense ensured that the two Spring Valley possessions that followed the picks went nowhere.
“From last week to tonight it was real good,” Martin said of the offense. “We scored more points this week and we didn’t score any points last week, so anytime we put points on the board, we’re doing our jobs right.”
Even so, Spring Valley quarterback Kellen Dimes gave defenders fits in trying to contain him. Dimes rushed 20 times for 148 yards to move the Vikings up and down the field. His two TD passes—a 28-yarder to Marcel Goodwin to open the game with a 7-0 lead and a 20-yarder to Alton Shell in the second quarter—were the only scores the Bengals (5-1, 1-1) would allow.
Unlike in previous games, Wednesday night was the first game of the season that head coach Nygel Pearson said his young Vikings (0-6, 0-2) fought throughout the game.
“This is a different game that we had as a football team this year,” Pearson said. “Guys fighting, and the game was closer than that score indicated. Our guys played hard and we’re going to go to the next one.”
Blythewood took the opening kickoff and went backward, punting on fourth-and-16 at its own 21-yard line.
After Dimes found Marcel Goodwin for a 28-yard touchdown pass to go up 7-0, the Bengals’ second possession wasn’t much better, going six plays and 10 yards.
After a while, Collins and the offense got over it. With 2:14 left in the first quarter Collins threw a 38-yard TD strike to a wide-open Coleman to tie the game at 7.
Early in the second quarter Collins nearly replicated that score with a 37-yard touchdown pass to Coleman that made it 14-7.
Dimes hit Alton Shell for a 20-yard touchdown at the 1:16 mark of the second. Grady Tucker’s extra-point attempt careened off the right goalpost and Blythewood retained a 14-13 lead.
The Bengals quickly stretched that lead with Ben Hendrix’s 98-yard kickoff return with 58 seconds left in the half.
After a scoreless third, Blythewood stretched its lead to 28-13 with Collins’ 23-yard TD pass to Kanye Reed with 10:26 left in the game.
The Bengals offense closed out the game with Collins’ third touchdown pass to Coleman, a 36-yarder, with 1:10 left.
Spring Valley plays host to Ridge View (2-3, 1-4) Oct. 4. The Blazers opened their region slate with a 16-6 home victory over Westwood (3-3, 1-1) Saturday.
Blythewood is at Lugoff-Elgin Oct. 4. The Demons (3-3, 0-2) fell 42-7 at Sumter Wednesday night.
“We’ve still got to clean up some things,” Martin said about
getting ready for the next game. We’ve got a lot of talent on this football
team. Sometime it’s can be one player one night and next game it could be
somebody else. Everyone’s just gotta do their job every single game and when we
do those things we can have some really good nights.”
Spring Valley – 7-6-0-0 – 13
Blythewood – 7-14-0-14 – 35
First Quarter
S – Marcel Goodwin 28 pass from Kellen Dimes (Grady Tucker kick) 6:08
B – Carter Coleman 38 pass from John Henry Collins (Liam Flynn kick) 2:14
Second Quarter
B – Coleman 37 pass from Collins (Flynn kick) 9:09
S – Alton Shell 20 pass from Dimes (kick failed) 1:16
B – Ben Hendrix 98 kickoff return (Flynn kick) :58
Fourth Quarter
B – Kanye Reed 23 pass from Collins (Flynn Kick) 10:26
B – Coleman 36 pass from Collins (Flynn kick) 1:10
SV BHS
First Downs 22 11
Rushes-yds 63-212 18-17
Passing yds 118 244
Att-Com-Int 22-8-0 19-11-2
Fumbles-lost 0-0 0-0
Penalties-yds 6-46 7-60
Punts-avg. 5-24.8 4-36.3
RUSHING
S – Kellen Dimes 10-148, Zachary Williams 18-61, Elijah Dillard 13-44, Johnathan Heyward 4-3, Marcel Goodwin 1-(-13), Dylan Redden 4-(-23), Team 1-(-8). B – Desmond Macklin 9-43, John Henry Collins 5-(-23), Alonzo Kyles 2-(-14), Ryan Hall 2-11.
PASSING
S – Kellen Dimes 5-15-0-77, Dylan Redden 3-7-0-41. B – John Henry Collins 11-19-2-244.
RECEIVING
S – Alton Shell 3-38, Marcel Goodwin 2-43, Elijah Dillard 1-1, Terrance Murrill 1-30, Johnathan Heyward 1-6. B – Carter Colman 4-126, Alonzo Kyles 2-48, Kanye Reed 2-39, Mitchel Hepler 1-18, Desmond Macklin 1-10, Chance Johnson 1-3.