ROCK HILL — South Pointe’s playmaker and its playmakers came though as expected, and held on to beat the Irmo Yellow Jackets 17-10 in the season opener for both teams on Friday night at District Three South Stadium.

First up was the plamaker, Stallions’ quarterback Devin Pearson. South Pointe’s offense had been sluggish the entire second half, and one of the teams had to make something happen to win the game, which was tied at 10 late in the final quarter.

The playmakers, who played defense like a heard of charging bulls, sacked Irmo quarterback Grant Devitte and South Pointe’s Justin Hart fell on the ball at the Yellow Jackets’ 23.

Pearson kept the ball around the left side on second down and broke the tie on a 20-yard touchdown run with just over five minutes left.

There was still time for Irmo to tie the game or win it with a 2-point conversion. Irmo got two shots while holding South Pointe to a three-and out.

But on the final Irmo possession, the defense bent a few times but stayed strong when it had to. The Stallions sacked Devitte three times for 23 yards, and Devitte fired a pair of incomplete passes in the game’s final five plays.

South Pointe held Irmo to 62 rushing yards and sacked Devitte eight times.

“Our defense did good tonight,” Stallions’ defensive lineman Zeek Rodney said. “We knew what they wanted to do, so we just teed off on them.

“They have an offensive lineman, (Taylor) Chambers. who’s going to Wake Forest. Most of the talk this week was about him and we felt we didn’t get any respect. So we went out and got some.”

South Pointe was cruising along with a 10-0 lead late in the second quarter and had not allowed Irmo to cross midfield.

But a bad punt took care of that. It was partially blocked and Irmo took over at the Stallions’ 28.

The Yellow Jackets didn’t freeze up on their first trip into enemy country, and they wanted to make sure they didn’t leave empty-handed. So Irmo coach Bob Hanna called a trick play on first down, a double pass.

Devitte took the snap and made a move along the line. He stopped and threw the ball behind him to the other side of the field, actually a lateral fired like a pass.

Trey Suber caught the ball and looked to the right sideline where Andre Jamison was streaking all alone toward the end zone. Suber hit him on the button, and Jamison scored to tighten the game.

“We had it, 10-0 and we felt like we were in control,” South Pointe coach Strait Herron said. “But we made a lot of mistakes tonight and we will have to fix them next week.

“Our defense played well, but we knew they would come out passing. I can’t tell you why, we just knew it. And we shut it down for the most part, until we made that mistake and they scored.

South Pointe jumped to its 10-0 lead on 20-yard field goal by Logan Ard after taking the opening kickoff, and the Stallions made it 10-0 on a 5-yard run by C.J. Pendergrass.

Irmo tied the game at 10 in the second half on Ben Hinson’s 41-yard field goal, and that was it until the final five minutes.

SOUTH POINTE 17, IRMO 10

Quarters

Scoring summary

SP – Logan Ard 20 field goal

SP – C.J. Pendergress 5 run (Ard kick)

I – Andre Jamison 28 pass from Trey Suber (Ben Hinson kick)

I – Hinson 41 field goal

SP – Devin Pearson 20 run (Ard kick)

Individual statistics

RUSHING: Irmo – Devitte 15-25, Shikee Brooks 2-(-5), Bryce Fashaw 5-39, Zavion Holmes 4-1, Manny Banks 1-6, . South Pointe – Pendergrass 17-83, Pearson 10-54

PASSING: Irmo – Grant Devitte 5-13-31-1, Suber 1-1-28-0. South Pointe – Pearson 14-26-58-1.

RECEIVING: Irmo – Will Jamison 1-6, Shikee Brooks 2-19, Suber 2-16, A. Jamison 1-28: . South Pointe – P.J. Heath 5-36, Brandon Barber 3-9, Pendergrass 1- (-1), Deshawn Davis 2-1, Montez McCullough 1-5, Buddy Byers 1-61.

: Irmo 0-1 ; South Pointe 1-0

Barry Byers 329-4099