Spring Valley forces 9 sacks to hand South Pointe football a frustrating first loss

On the last consequential play in District Three South Stadium in Rock Hill on Friday night — on South Pointe’s last chance to get any offense going — Spring Valley did what it had done all night.

And, in doing so, the Vikings delivered the Stallions their first loss of 2021.

With Spring Valley up 14-7 with just under two minutes to go in the game and South Pointe 80-plus yards away from a touchdown, the 5A visitors dialed up an effective pass rush. Quarterback Zay McCrorey, who’d already been sacked nine (yes, nine) times throughout the game Friday, was staying upright as long as he could, shrugging off defensive ends and tackles and linebackers.

But then, as he was falling, he heaved the ball in the air and it was picked off by Spring Valley linebacker David Squires.

Two Spring Valley QB kneels later, and that was it.

Spring Valley earned its biggest win of 2021 thus far. And South Pointe’s perfect season was undone.

“Every game this year has been a test,” South Pointe coach DeVonte Holloman told The Herald Friday night. “We’re arguably playing one of the toughest schedules in South Carolina. And Spring Valley is a good team. We came out flat in the first half, and we were in it down there at the end. We just couldn’t get it going on offense.”

Let’s be clear: This was not a pretty game. There were two blocked field goals. Eleven total sacks. And 344 yards of total offense (both teams combined).

South Pointe had minus-7 rushing yards on the night.

And yet — by the brawn and perseverance of a strong defense, when a lot on offense went wrong — South Pointe was in the game until the very end.

“They had a good D-line,” Holloman said, highlighting the play of Spring Valley’s defensive end Mondell Hutto and defensive tackle Ky Tayo, who caused South Pointe headaches all night. “You can’t really do anything on offense if you can’t block. So we gotta get better.”

The game broke out of its 0-0 stalemate with just over a minute left in the first quarter, when Spring Valley crunched a 69-yard, time-consuming drive and turned it into a touchdown via a 17-yard connection between senior quarterback Dequandre Smith and wide receiver Evan Javis to make it 7-0.

The Vikings had their first field goal blocked as time expired at the half.

South Pointe responded well at the beginning of the second half: It started with a Spring Valley turnover — thanks to a fumble forced by Syracuse commit Quan Peterson and recovered by Isiah Steele — and that turned into a touchdown via a McCrorey 24-yard touchdown pass to Waymond Jenerette to tie the game at 7.

But then, with 9:51 remaining in the game, Spring Valley’s Smith made the play of the day that wouldn’t be supplanted: He scrambled right — evading Stallion pass rushers 10 yards behind the line of scrimmage — and found Deshun Jordan along the right sideline for a 25-yard touchdown and a 14-7 Spring Valley lead.

And the score, thanks to a slew of more quarterback pressures and sacks, wouldn’t change from there.

Holloman, with his team in front of him in the northern end zone, their faces in a collective gloom, told his team to not be pulled apart because of this loss.

“My main message to this team is to just stay together through everything,” Holloman said. “There’s going to be a lot of noise this week. We’re going to hear how bad we are for the first time this season. But (we) understand that it was a non-region game, and that there’s a whole new season starting next week.”

South Pointe was led by McCrorey, who completed 19-of-27 passes for 205 yards and a touchdown and one interception. Waymond Jenerette led the team in receiving with seven catches for 82 yards; Demari Kendrick added five catches for 73 yards.

Spring Valley’s offensive leader was its quarterback, Smith, who went 10 of 17 for 104 yards and two touchdowns.

The Stallions open region play against Catawba Ridge — the team expected to be the Stallions’ most worthy challengers for the region title — next week on the road. Spring Valley is set to play region foe Rock Hill.

This story was originally published September 24, 2021 at 11:55 PM.

Alex Zietlow

The Herald

Alex Zietlow writes about sports and the ways in which they intersect with life in York, Chester and Lancaster counties for The Herald, where he has been an editor and reporter since August 2019. Zietlow has won nine S.C. Press Association awards in his career, including First Place finishes in Feature Writing, Sports Enterprise Writing and Education Beat Reporting. He also received two Top-10 awards in the 2021 APSE writing contest and was nominated for the 2022 U.S. Basketball Writers Association’s Rising Star award for his coverage of the Winthrop men’s basketball team.