By Thomas Grant Jr.
On the W.C. Hawkins Stadium sidelines as Irmo looked to either tie the game or the lead, quarterback Jaxon Knotts found one way of supporting his Dutch Fork teammates.
“I was over there praying the whole last minute of the game,” he said.
After helping the Silver Foxes build a 21-point lead, he witnessed Yellow Jacket backup quarterback Britton Davis throw two touchdowns in 94 seconds. Irmo now had the football at the Dutch Fork 4-yard line with 32 seconds left and a rejuvenated home crowd cheering at the top of their lungs.
Needing a yard to keep the drive alive, however, Davis threw incompletions on third and fourth downs. This allowed Knotts to return to the field to run out the remaining 22 seconds of the 28-21 victory.
“Just real proud of the way our guys responded when their backs were against the wall back there,” said Tom Knotts, who accused the Irmo coaching staff of watching his team’s game film for two hours prior to the matchup.
The win clinched the Region 4-5A title for Dutch Fork (8-1, 5-0), its 15th under Knotts. It also snapped Irmo’s 27-game home-winning streak dating back to September 2021.
As expected, it was a hard-hitting affair which featured aggressive play upfront on both sides. Irmo’s defensive line, led by Jaiden Bryant, held Dutch Fork to one first down on its first three series.
The Yellow Jackets took a 7-0 lead in the first quarter. Starting quarterback Dre’Von Dopson fired a long bomb to Corey Miller over the Dutch Fork defender for a 79-yard touchdown.
Capitalizing on field position, Dutch Fork answered with 28 unanswered points. The Silver Foxes scored 21 in the second quarter, starting with a 1-yard run by Quinton Wilson.
Knotts then made it 14-0 with a 16-yard pass to Stone Furrey. The Touchstone Energy Cooperative Selection managed to field the cradle the football just inside the right pylon for the go-ahead score with 4:04 left in the first half.
Just before halftime, Knotts completed a 5-yard touchdown pass to Kyle Henry to make it 21-7.
“Everything we did wrong, we went out and fixed it,” said Henry, who rushed for 96 yards. “We watched film and we just did our thing. We knew it was going to be a tense match, but we matched their energy.”
A 17-play, 84-yard scoring drive that stretched over eight minutes through third and fourth quarters extended Dutch Fork’s lead to 28-7.
Before scoring on a 1-yard run, Knotts made a drive-saving play. As Henry appeared to get tackled in the backfield by Bryant for a loss, Knotts snatched the ball away and picked up six yards.
After Davis threw back-to-back incompletions on third and fourth down needing a yard for a first down. A 15-yard targeting penalty on Irmo moved the football into the Red Zone and eventually led to Knotts’ score.
As Irmo moved the football into Dutch Fork territory on its next series, Dopson was replaced by Davis. After a 7-yard run, he threw a long pass in the direction of Corey Miller.
It was initially tipped by cornerback Taddrick Gibson, but deflected into the hands of Miller for a 42-yard touchdown with 5:34 remaining.
On Dutch Fork’s next series, Knotts lost the football as he was sacked by a blitzing Jayden Arrington. The Yellow Jacket cornerback made the recovery at the Silver Foxes’ 22-yard line.
This time, older brother Maleek Miller got into the scoring for Irmo. Davis fired a pass in the middle of the field just past two Dutch Fork defenders and into Miller’s hands for the score with four minutes left.
Irmo forced a punt with 2:15 left and got the football back at its own 22. Davis fired a 48-yard pass to Corey Miller to the Dutch Fork 25 and then, on second and 17, hit Jay Eaddy for 16 yards with 32 seconds left.
He finished with 125 passing yards on just 4 completions on six attempts. It was those two incompletions on a pass break up by A’maurie Harley and low throw on fourth down that ended the comeback effort.
This was the second straight year Irmo (9-1, 4-1) has dropped its final game of the season. It has gone 28-2 the past three regular seasons under head coach Aaron Brand, both losses at the hands of the Silver Foxes.
“We haven’t really ever beat this team,” Bryant said. “So, we had the city cheering us on. It really motivated us. We had to come out and fight, but we fell short and it hurt. It hurt really bad. But we’re going to suck it up. We’re going to win this ring.”
Both teams will receive first-round byes as the number-one overall seeds in Class 5A Divisions I and II, respectively.
