Barnwell keeps things simple in record-setting rout of rival Silver Bluff in Wednesday night game

BARNWELL 47, SILVER BLUFF 0

PETTICOAT JUNCTION -- Barnwell wanted to keep things simple this week for its trip to rival Silver Bluff.

It was already a short week, with this being one of several high school football games in the state moved up from Friday night to Wednesday to avoid any nasty weather caused by Hurricane Helene, so there was no need to reinvent the wheel.

A play put into the playbook on Monday looks exactly like that on Friday - on Wednesday, forget about it.

As it turns out, Barnwell's simple made life very difficult for Silver Bluff.

The Warhorses romped to the largest margin of victory in the 42-year history of the series, shutting out the Bulldogs on their home field, 47-0, to put a nice bow on non-region play while keeping their rivals still frustratedly searching for their first win of the season.

"Great win. Great win. I'm proud of our kids," Barnwell head coach Brian Smith said. "... I thought our kids played focused, other than a couple penalties we had. We held them in check most of the night defensively again. Any time you shut out Silver Bluff - I know they're struggling a bit right now, but (Bulldogs head coach Matt Hayes) is a great football coach and a good friend of ours, and he's going to do a great job here. We're looking forward to this rivalry for years to come, but tonight was just a night we were the better ball club."

The Warhorses (5-1), the sixth-ranked team in Class AA, leaned on their size advantage to out-gain the Bulldogs (0-6) 318-121, won the turnover battle, controlled time of possession and responded with authority any time it looked like Silver Bluff might be developing a glimmer of momentum.

"Your record says what you are, and we haven't played good football. That starts with me," Hayes said. "Me and this coaching staff have got to do a better job of putting guys in the positions to play. At the end of the day, we keep saying young team, inexperienced, we haven't identified who we are, we changed the offense trying to get where we can catch a snap, get a snap, get some consistency, get some momentum. Barnwell, they just played better."

Barnwell put the game away with a late scoring burst to end the first half. Silver Bluff's defense, one which has had to carry a load each week while the offense continues to sputter, forced the Warhorses to settle for a 19-yard Lane Evans field goal to keep the deficit at a reasonable 17-0 with 1:15 to go in the second quarter.

Then it got out of hand in a hurry.

William Robinson picked off Jordan Walker on first down, returning it around 60 yards for a touchdown, and then seconds later the Warhorses forced a fumble. Cameron Austin, who went 13-for-15 for 176 yards and two scores, found Kahzeer Wesley for a 29-yard touchdown and a 30-0 lead to cap a stretch of 16 points in 48 seconds.

From then on, it was just a matter of when the running clock would be utilized. The Warhorses controlled the clock with their power-run game, generating 142 yards and three scores and helping keep the game as short as possible.

Silver Bluff was discombobulated on offense all night, the Bulldogs' struggles evenly self-inflicted and Barnwell-caused. They've experimented with a variety of offensive strategies during the first six games of the season, and Wednesday night's offense looked like a throwback to the Al Lown days - other than the part where it only generated 81 yards on 28 attempts, with 32 of those yards coming from Dorian Jones on the final drive with the game well in hand.

In addition to the fumble and pick-six, the Bulldogs were forced to punt twice, turned it over on downs three times and had their other two possessions ended by the halftime and game-over whistles. One of those turnovers on downs became a 98-yard scoring drive for Barnwell, capped by a 19-yard touchdown pass from Austin to Robinson to make it 37-0 midway through the third quarter.

"We're asking these guys to go do ordinary things at an extraordinary level and it's hard to repeat that, especially when we've got six or seven guys going both ways," Hayes said. "We're going to look at maybe looking at some younger talent to bring up. We've just got to clean up these mistakes. That goes with alignments, our assignments, techniques, all the stuff that coaches get paid to do. We've got to get these guys to play better than that, and they've got to play together."

It's been a tough start to year one under Hayes for Silver Bluff, with three of the Bulldogs' six losses coming by 17 points or more. The Bulldogs are asking several players to play both ways and out of position as they attempt to figure out who and what is going to work once Region 4-AAA play begins next Friday at home against Newberry. Not much has gone right, but they know who they'll rely on as everyone's records reset at 0-0 with playoff chases beginning.

"Our seniors," Hayes said. "We've got Jordan Walker playing guard and mike linebacker. Devonta Parker played receiver. Jameat Williams is playing halfback, fullback, quarterback, free safety. Malik Mozone. You lean on those seniors. They're our better players. They're our most experienced players. We don't have a lot of them, but you lean on those guys. They're starting to take some of that vocal - because it's all us. Obviously, people are going to say what they're going to say, but we've got to stay within this group and our senior leadership's an important part of that."

Smith didn't have much he could complain about Wednesday - a missed extra point and a couple of penalties were the only real blemishes prior to reviewing the game film. They've responded well to challenges the last few weeks, and aside from a bad final minute in a loss to South Aiken the Warhorses have looked like a good football team. The next challenge is next Friday at Lake Marion as Barnwell begins Region 5-AA play.

"The thing is, we're 5-1. We've got four ball games left that mean the world," Smith said. "The good thing about our region is the region winner doesn't go on the road in the playoffs. We're excited about that opportunity. Our seniors have talked about it, the opportunity just to keep playing at home, not have to get on a bus, eat that food that we know we're going to get each week from the restaurants in town. That's a big thing for us, so we'd really like to do that, but that's going to take four great weeks."

B 14 16 7 10 -- 47

SB 0 0 0 0 -- 0

SCORING SUMMARY

First Quarter

B - Cameron Austin 7 run (Lane Evans kick) 7:20

B - Nehemiah Brown 2 run (Evans kick) 1:23

Second Quarter

B - Evans 19 field goal 1:15

B - William Robinson 60 interception return (Evans kick) 1:01

B - Austin 29 pass to Kahzeer Wesley (kick missed) 0:27

Third Quarter

B - Austin 19 pass to Robinson (Evans kick) 5:36

Fourth Quarter

B - Evans 35 field goal 11:16

B - Jayden Rollins 1 run (Evans kick) 5:14

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

Rushing

B - Nehemiah Brown 14-50-1, Cameron Austin 9-45-1, Jayden Rollins 5-23-1, Jaquan Peeples 3-22, Jordan Peeples 1-2. Totals 32-142-3.

SB - Dorian Jones 5-32, Jameat Williams 6-27, Malik Mozone 8-16, Drelyn Brown 3-7, Jordan Williams 6-(-1). Totals 28-81.

Passing

B - Cameron Austin 13-15-176-2-0.

SB - Jordan Williams 3-6-40-0-1.

Receiving

B - Jaquan Peeples 6-93, William Robinson 3-38-1, Kahzeer Wesley 2-34-1, Logan Sturkie 1-7, Trey Boleman 1-4. Totals 13-176-2.

SB - Zean Dicks 1-38, Cam'ron Frazier 2-2. Totals 3-40.

Interceptions

B - William Robinson.