South Pointe celebrates latest state championship, as a team

Alex Lais was stripping off his green-stained white uniform in the South Pointe Stallions’ locker room after their 4A state championship win Saturday when duty called. The senior offensive tackle stopped what he was doing and jumped into the mosh pit of elated Stallions bouncing around to rap music in the underbelly of Williams-Brice Stadium. It was another memorable dance party for a football program that’s getting used to them.

“This one was the best. Ten out of 10,” said Lais, laughing, as he compared this impromptu dance throw-down to the two others he’s been in.

South Pointe won its third straight state title on Saturday, but no matter how many championship trophies sit in the school’s awards cabinet, winning doesn’t get old.

Too much work and effort goes into a football season to not enjoy the good times, to not have dance parties at Williams-Brice Stadium on Saturday afternoons bathed in mottled winter light.

If a football season feels like a lifetime, this one - lengthened by two weeks - nearly felt like two.

South Pointe assistant coach Welvin Simpkins certainly felt that way standing outside the locker room with his son by his side. His nephew, Lewis, a sophomore football player at River Bluff, passed away in August after collapsing at a practice. Simpkins knows exactly where Lewis would have been on Saturday.

“He would have been here,” he said. “I actually teared up a little on the sideline thinking about him.”

Saturday’s championship win was the pay-off for Simpkins, and for the kids that don’t make the newspaper or web site headlines. Lais and his kind, the oft-overlooked blockers that pave the way for all the amazing athletes at South Pointe, don’t get much attention outside the program. But the Stallions wouldn’t have five titles in 11 seasons, wouldn’t have played in nine straight Upper State championship games or won 15 playoffs games in a row, without kids like Lais.

“It’s no big deal. That’s part of our duty,” he said. “Just make the blocks, move the ball.”

And boogie afterward.

It’s easy to be a background player at South Pointe, knowing your sometimes overlooked contributions can set the table for the top-class talent the school has been blessed with since it opened. It’s fun to be a part of breakout performances like those from juniors B.J. Davis and Steven Gilmore Jr. on Saturday.

Davis’ interception and later touchdown reception demonstrated why coach Strait Herron thinks he’s a high-major Division I recruit. And Gilmore Jr. showed that his older brother, Buffalo Bills cornerback and former Gamecocks star Stephon, isn’t the only one in his family capable of game-breaking performances on South Carolina’s home patch.

Gilmore Jr. was the team’s sixth-leading receiver coming into the game. A team is only as good as its depth, and the Stallions showed for a third year in a row that they had more than anybody.

“One good thing about what we do,” said offensive coordinator Jason McManus, “it could be anybody’s night and it’s been that way all year.

You don’t reach, let alone win, three straight state titles without generations passing on the lessons of success they themselves learned. It happened again Saturday.

When a host of ninth and 10th graders entered the game with the outcome decided, another bridge was constructed between generations of Stallions that ensures the feeling and experience of winning a state title lives on in the program. Freshman QB Tahleek Steele’s late touchdown pass to senior Bo Taylor - a top-notch baseball player headed to Coastal Carolina but a role player on the football team - was emblematic of that.

“Tahleek has been with us ever since the JV season, the ninth grade season has been over and we’ve been training him as the No. 2 quarterback,” said McManus. “We believe in trusting the process and trusting the coaching and he did what he’s supposed to do and he executed.”

It felt good for McManus to see that happen. It felt great for Steele to throw a touchdown pass in a state championship game at Williams-Brice Stadium. It felt amazing for Taylor to end his career with a touchdown catch, his first, in the right side of the end zone.

It felt so good for offensive lineman Keshawn Freeman and defensive end Eli Adams to dump Gatorade on Strait Herron, not once but twice. Jalen Pickett-Hicks felt good when - after he returned a fumble 35 yards for a touchdown - his teammates came up to chest bump and promptly knocked him on his rear in the end zone.

And man, that dance party felt good.

Saturday was the perfect ending to another South Pointe team effort.

“It was a roller coaster. From start to finish there were ups and downs,” said Simpkins. “Even myself. I had a newborn child born in October, lost my nephew, this guy here” – pointing at his young son – “got real sick, so I had a lot going on. The team itself was just awesome, being able to put everything aside and work together. A true testament to the guys understanding how a team works.”

This story was originally published December 17, 2016 at 5:55 PM with the headline "South Pointe celebrates latest state championship, as a team."