Knights make playoffs

Mark Morgan / The Item Crestwood High School's Kerell Wells rushes upfield against Lakewood on Friday at District Two Stadium. The Knights won 49-0.

By PATRICK ENZOR
Item Assistant Sports Editor
penzor@theitem.com

DALZELL — When the final whistle blew at District Two Stadium on Friday, the Crestwood Knights were on the outside looking in in regards to the playoffs despite their 49-0 win over Sumter County rival Lakewood because of the score at the time in the Wilson-Darlington game.

Not three minutes later, the Knights were the No. 3 seed out of Region VI-3A.

The biggest play for Crestwood all night didn’t even take place in Dalzell. Instead, the biggest play happened at Memorial Stadium in Florence.

With under five minutes left in its game with Darlington and trailing 41-7, Wilson had the No. 4 seed secured as long as it didn’t score a touchdown. However, the Tigers’ returned a kickoff for a touchdown and thereby booted themselves from the playoffs.

Crestwood head coach Keith Crolley will glady accept it. The Knights will travel to Region V No. 2 seed Midland Valley on Friday for a first round matchup in the state playoffs.

“I was about let down there for a minute,” smiled Crolley, whose team is 5-5 overall and finished 2-3 in the region. “I appreciated Wilson doing what they did and battling to the end. You don’t want to back in the playoffs and go as hard as you can go. I wouldn’t have a kid to not run it back myself. I probably wouldn’t have even thought about it.”

It was another resounding effort by the Crestwood defense. The Knights limited the Gators to just 37 yards rushing on 35 carries — despite giving up a 67-yard run to Dalvin Bracey — and just 42 yards of total offense.

The defense also put up a touchdown when Jeffrey Swinton capped the night’s scoring with a 15-yard interception return with 7:31 left in the game.

“It was a learning experience, a life-learning experience,” Lakewood head caoch Doc Lewis said of his team’s 0-10 season. “They showed up to practice everyday and that’s all I can ask of them.

“I thought defensively, we played the best we could play,” he added. “We gambled a lot because we couldn’t go toe-to-toe with them. We struggled offensively as a team. Crestwood is the best I’ve seen defensively in a long time.”

The special teams even got involved as Mike Portee returned a first-quarter punt for a 72-yard touchdown and blocked a punt in the second quarter.

The offense, which has at times struggled this season, put up 330 yards of offense — 211 on the ground and 119 through the air.

“We came out and played real well,” said Crolley. “Everything kind of went our way. We had a lot of penalites to start out, but once we settled down we played pretty good.”

Alonzo McGee rushed for two touchdowns on the night, a six-yarder in the first quarter and a one-yard plunge in the fourth quarter. Willie Glover connected with Damone Pringle on a tight end screen in the second quarter that went for a 28-yard TD and the quarterback added a six-yard run in the third quarter.

Robert Simon also had a two-yard score in the first quarter as the Knights held a 28-0 lead at halftime.

Eleven different Knights accounted for a carry in the game.

Crestwood 49, Lakewood 0

LHS CHS

First downs 1 9

Rushes-yards 35-37 45-211

Passing 5 119

Comp-Att-Int 3-1-1 6-4-0

Fumbles-Lost 0-0 2-1

Punts 6-29.3 2-36.5

Penalties-Yards 7-45 10-75

Lakewood 0 0 0 0 - 0

Crestwood 21 7 7 14 - 49

First Quarter

C -- McGee 6 run (Ray kick).

C -- Portee 72 punt return (Ray kick).

C -- Simon 2 run (Ray kick).

Second Quarter

C -- Pringle 24 pass from Glover (Ray kick).

Third Quarter

C -- Glover 6 run (Ray kick).

Fourth Quarter

C -- McGee 1 run (Ray kick).

C -- Swinton 15 interception return (Ray kick).