Darlington crushes Hartsville for second time

Darlington High School sports icon Coach Rick Drawdy was honored at halftime with a banner in his honor.  Photo by Drake Horton

Darlington High School sports icon Coach Rick Drawdy was honored at halftime with a banner in his honor.
Photo by Drake Horton

By Drake Horton
Contributing Writer

In every victory there is a point in the game where the winning team was able to separate themselves from their opponent.

Sometimes it’s at the start, sometimes it’s at the end, sometimes it’s in between and sometimes it’s the entire the game, but no matter what point it is there is that point.

This past Friday the Darlington Falcons used an explosive first quarter in route to its fourth straight victory over its arch rival, the Hartsville Red Foxes, by a score of 85-42.

“The first quarter was just an awesome quarter for us,” Darlington boys’ head coach Ken Howle said on the impressive first quarter. “You couldn’t ask for a better way to start.”

It’s the second time the Falcons have beat the Red Foxes this season, as Darlington defeated Hartsville 82-62, back on December 27, at the Carolina Pepsis Classic in Florence.

Right out of the gate, Darlington jumped out in front of Hartsville by a score of 14-0 before the Red Foxes even scored its first points of the game and finished the quarter off up 32-13 behind seven three pointers, four coming from J.J. Jackson.

“J.J. kind of had a coming out party tonight,” Howle said on Jackson’s big game. “We’ve know he is capable of that, but he is too unselfish and he needs to look for his shot a little bit more.”

Darlington outscored Hartsville in every quarter, with the closest being the second quarter when Falcons were only able to muster up 10 points compared to the Red Foxes six.

Coming out of the half Darlington exploded for 25 points, extending its lead to 67-31 and the Falcons were just as dominate in the fourth quarter outscoring the Red Foxes 18-11 leading to the 43-point victory.

One of the biggest reasons for Darlington’s huge victory was its ability to shoot from outside the arch. As a team the Falcons shot 50% from three-point land, going an impressive 12-24.

Leading Darlington in both scoring and three-point shooting was Jackson, who finished the night with 20 points while being 6-9 from down town.

“I played good,” Jackson said on his huge night. “Coach Howle told me I needed to be more aggressive on offense.”

Complimenting Jackson’s career night was both Frankie Johnson and Marquis Green who each finished in double digits in scoring.

Johnson, who did not have the best night of shooting, was still able to score 19 points, making some important free throws to go along with his eight assists, including a beautiful pass to Green right near the end of the second quarter.

“Everybody came out and played good,” Johnson said on the win against Hartsville. “I was surprised I thought they would have played a little harder it was like they laid down in the second quarter and we kept putting our foot on the gas. Coach said for us to not let up.”

Green had 10 points for the Falcons.

Darlington is 13-4 overall, 3-0 in the region.

RECAP
Darlington won its other game of the week, a road contest against the Manning Monarchs by a score of 80-45 on January 13.

Author: Jana Pye

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