Rock Hill’s season comes to an end with 31-7 loss to Spartanburg in playoffs

Rock Hill lost to Spartanburg 31-7 in the first round of the 5A state football playoffs Thursday night.

Rock Hill, which ended its season with a 6-5 record, was unable to get its offense going for most of the night.

The Bearcats’ offense, which relies on explosive plays couldn’t find them, recording only one play over 20-plus yards: a 24-yard halfback pass from senior wideout Kamari Moore to junior Malik Clark.

The Bearcats also had multiple turnovers.

“We turned the ball over,” Rock Hill head coach Bubba Pittman said. “A time or two we didn’t convert on a fourth-down opportunity that I thought might have kept us in the football game, kept a drive going. It’s just kind of been feast or famine for our offense all year. We have explosive players, and we’re able to get the ball down the field. When that was there, we could light the scoreboard up. When we weren’t able to create those explosive plays, we had a hard time just stringing together big, long drives.”

Rock Hill’s lone score came on the same drive as their longest completed pass. Senior quarterback Matthew Wilson faced ablitz from Spartanburg’s defense and threw a pass to an open Clark into the end zone for a 15-yard touchdown.

The score made it 17-7 Spartanburg with 34 seconds left in the first half.

Defensively, Rock Hill played just about as well as it could.

Despite a bug going around that kept multiple Bearcats starters on the sideline, the defense held Spartanburg to just 17 points on offense.

Freshman defensive backs Kaiden Watkins and Nigel Lightner both recorded interceptions in the game.

Looking for his defense to improve after allowing over 40 points last season, Pittman thought his defense played well Thursday night.

“I’m proud of them, and I’m proud of where they were last year to where they came to this year,” Pittman said. “I think our defense made tremendous strides, and they were the reason that we were able to climb to second in our region, and they were one of the reasons that we were able to get a home playoff game.”

Pittman credits his seniors for getting Rock Hill as far as it did, saying they laid a solid foundation.

“They set some goals, and they were realistic in the goals that they set,” Pittman said. “Every fan in the stands wants us to win a state championship, we want to win state championships, but I think those guys understood where we are with our personnel, and they reached a lot of goals that they were really trying to get to.”

“When I think about this team, I’ll think that I’m really proud of the improvement. I’m proud of the defensive improvement. I’m proud of the improvement with the wins and losses. I’m proud that we never gave up. We fought and fought and fought, and I’m just going to miss those guys.”

It was the first time Rock Hill finished with a winning since 2019.

This story was originally published November 2, 2023 at 11:26 PM.