South Pointe defeats Greenville to advance to first 4A state championship since 2017
The Stallions have a date in Columbia.
The South Pointe football team (11-1), thanks to an opportunistic defense and a well-rounded offense and a chip on its shoulder as big as they come, defeated Greenville 24-14 on Friday night in Rock Hill to win the 4A Upper State title and advance to the 4A state championship game.
South Pointe took its eighth Upper State championship win since the school opened in 2005. The most recent one was in 2017, which is also the last time the Stallions won it all.
“This is great man,” head coach DeVonte Holloman told reporters postgame as his team celebrated and screamed and jumped around behind him. “Our goal has been to just get better and better each week. I love where we are as a team right now. And we just got one more to finish this thing off.”
South Pointe is scheduled to play Beaufort on Thursday at 7 p.m. at Benedict College. That game is special for the team and for the community — but it has a unique meaning for Holloman. The head coach and South Pointe alum got his head coaching start at Beaufort and credits that team and that program for finding his life purpose again after an injury foiled his NFL dreams.
“You can’t make this stuff up,” Holloman said.
He added, “Proud of us for making it this far. Proud of them for making it this far. But I said it all season: ‘It’s not about the other team. It’s about what we do at South Pointe.’ ”
How South Pointe beat Greenville
For a moment on Friday night, it wasn’t clear there would be any scoring. Neither team notched a point or a first down on its first two drives — not even Greenville, which blocked a punt and set up 27 yards from the end zone on its second possession to no avail.
Enter Ja’Quan Thompson.
The South Pointe junior running back got his offense going with a 23-yard run, which ultimately set up a pair of screen passes — the first to Demari Kendrick and the second to Jakhari Webb for a 25-yard touchdown. A successful point-after attempt gave South Pointe a 7-0 lead.
After another Greenville punt, with just over a minute remaining in the first quarter, Thompson provided another spark with a 40-yard sprint thanks to a big interior hole made by the offensive line. That drive was capped by a quarterback Zay McCrorey toss to Waymond Jenerette for an 11-yard touchdown and a 14-0 Stallions lead.
“It’s not just the running backs,” Holloman said. “The OL, you know, a weak spot for us per se last year, the improvement that we made all around. We got about six or seven guys that we can put and rotate, and they do a great job blocking. … We got a three-headed backfield, and they don’t really care who gets the carry. They all root for each other.”
Greenville went the entire first quarter without recording a first down, but the team soon figured it out. The Red Raiders moved the ball well the rest of the game but were stifled by red-zone turnovers.
The first of those turnovers came late in the second quarter. Less than 20 yards from a score, Franklin tossed a backward pass to his teammate out of the backfield, the ball fell to the ground and was then scooped up by senior defensive back Ty Chambers — who ran it all the way back for an 81-yard score.
“The ref didn’t blow the whistle,” Holloman said of Chambers’ play with a shrug and a smile, “so I just screamed for him pick up the ball and run.”
After a Greenville touchdown right before the half — a 6-yard connection between Franklin and Josh Sapp to make it 21-7 — the timely turnovers for South Pointe continued. Ten yards away from giving up another score, South Pointe’s Johnathan Williams intercepted a Greenville pass.
That eventually led to a Chip DiStasio 23-yard field goal with 2:24 remaining in the third quarter and a 24-7 South Pointe lead.
Two interceptions that deflated Greenville and fanned the flames of South Pointe later — one by senior DB Chris McCullough, one by senior DB and Syracuse commit Quan Peterson (who forced the interception in the red zone) — all but sealed the game.
The Red Raiders scored once more on a Tyler Brown 4-yard reception with 2:18 left in the fourth quarter to make it 24-14, but an unsuccessful onside kick try basically ended it.
“They’ve been stingy all season, and tonight was another example of that,” Holloman said of his defense. “They moved the ball on us, but once our back was against the ropes, more times than not, we found a way to get a stop.”
Stat leaders for South Pointe, Greenville Friday night
The Stallions were led by a host of characters on Friday night.
Thompson finished with 15 carries for 133 yards rushing. Caleb Sims had seven carries for 42 yards. Armendiz Huskey led the team in receiving with 11 catches for 72 yards and a fumble. Jenerette had three catches for 25 yards and a score.
The maturation of South Pointe’s quarterback McCrorey has been palpable. Friday night proved to be another step of progress. The senior finished with a solid stat-line of two touchdowns and 144 yards on 10-of-20 passing and made plenty of plays with his feet, too, rushing for a third-best 18 yards.
As the deserved hoopla ensued on the field, it was impossible not to notice who was there to see this South Pointe team win. There was Nick McCloud, a South Pointe alum who won a championship in 2017 and is now a player for the Buffalo Bills. There was Bobby Carroll, the former head coach at South Pointe who gave the program the formidable reputation it has now. (He even coached Holloman when he was in high school and approached his former player after the game: “I’m more proud of you than you could ever know,” he said as he hugged Holloman.)
South Pointe has thrived off being underestimated this season — by the idea that it isn’t connected to the championship teams of just a few years ago. And on Friday night, those South Pointe greats saw this current South Pointe team earn a date with history.
“There’s only one way for us to probably get our respect, and that’s to win it next week,” Holloman said. “So we’re not satisfied, but our message is starting to get sent out and people are starting to believe that we’re back.”
Editor’s note: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated how many Upper State championships South Pointe has won (eight, not seven) and who caught South Pointe’s first touchdown pass. The errors have been fixed.
This story was originally published November 26, 2021 at 11:58 PM.
.jpeg)