Missed chances too much for Falcons to overcome
Photo by Drake Horton
By Drake Horton, Contributing Writer
Florence – The Darlington Falcons wrapped up its non-conference game schedule this past Thursday on the road against the South Florence Bruins and just like the other five games this year, the results were not pleasing.
Looking for its first win of the season, the Falcons wanted to gain it before they start region play next week, but instead South Florence continued its hot streak, defeating Darlington 56-7.
“We have struggled early this year and we have struggled through some ball games and one of the things we have kept fighting for is for the opportunity when region play starts to get there and we are really proud of their effort,” Darlington head coach John Jones said.
While the Bruins did play good it was not all South Florence that made the game so lopsided. Darlington, as has been the case for most of the season, continually failed to execute when needed, thus resulting in a disastrous outcome.
“We got to learn to finish some plays, offensively we dropped the ball, had some guys open,” Jones said. “Defensively, we just didn’t make some tackles and sometimes inexperience sticks its head through, but as the head coach of this football that falls on me to have us ready to play in the those situations and to finish plays- and evidently I haven’t done a good enough job to teach us how to finish those plays.”
Right out of the gate the Falcons wide receivers either dropped or failed to catch a ball that hit their hands in seven of the first nine passes. The first one was complete and the eighth pass was almost intercepted.
The lack of a passing game resulted in plethora of three and outs for the Darlington offense, who did not record its first first-down of the game until the early part of the second quarter. Overall, the Falcons had only six first downs for the entire game.
South Florence capitalized on the Falcons weak passing game roughly midway through the second quarter, intercepting starting quarterback Silas Barr’s pass and returning to the Darlington one-yard line, setting up the Bruins fifth touchdown of the game.
The one bright spot on the offense happened at the 2:45 mark in the second quarter when backup quarterback Joseph Scott connected with Eric Brown on a 75-yard touchdown pass that put the Falcons on the board, cutting the Bruins lead to 35-7.
But that small sample size of momentum for the Falcons did not last long as Darlington failed to execute in kickoff coverage following the touchdown, allowing South Florence to return the ensuing kickoff 60 plus yards for the touchdown just 15 seconds later.
In the first two quarters of play, South Florence scored 21 points in the first and another 21 points in the second compared to Darlington’s lone touchdown in second quarter.
The Bruins added two more touchdowns, one in the third that was set up by a blocked punt and one in the fourth with just 1:09 left to extend their lead to 56-7. The game was on a running clock for the entire second half.
With the non-conference schedule wrapped up, the Falcons will now set their focus on region play as Darlington finishes up its four game road swing with its opening region game against the Crestwood Knights in Sumter this coming Friday.
“We talked to our guys a lot about finishing and one of the things we have stressed all season, all August, is wanting to get our team into the playoffs,” Jones said. “We have talked about region play, region play, region play.”
A good showing in region play will erase all of the shortcomings from the non-conference.
County Recap
In other action around Darlington County, the Lamar Silver Foxes improved to 6-0 overall with its 35-21 win over the Crestwood Knights at home this past Friday while Trinity-Byrnes improved to 3-2 on the year with its 35-7 win over Florence Christian.
The Hartsville Red Foxes were off this past week. They are currently 5-0 on the year.