South Carolina team takes home newspaper’s 7-on-7 football tournament title

Published 12:26 pm Monday, July 18, 2016

DALTON, Ga. — Northwest Whitfield’s offense hadn’t been stopped all day. But with the Bruins driving down the field, down eight in the championship game of The Daily Citizen’s Southeastern 7-on-7 Championship presented by AstroTurf, the Westside Rams finally answered the call. The Rams forced a turnover on downs and sealed a 22-12 victory to win the championship.

Northwest had finished pool play as the No. 1 overall seed in the tournament and had not lost prior to falling in the championship.

“Losing is never a fun thing and you definitely want to come out with a championship, especially as well as we played,” Northwest coach Josh Robinson said. “We didn’t get the job done but we also have nothing to hang our heads about. The kids played outstanding against some very good teams.”

Westside (Anderson, S.C.) claimed the tournament title for its fourth 7-on-7 championship of the summer. The Rams went undefeated on Saturday with four victories and finished the tournament with 10 wins and just one loss to eventual third-place finisher, Brentwood Academy.

The Rams’ quarterback Jackson Williamson was named the tournament’s MVP, but Westside coach Scott Early recognized his entire team’s resiliency as the difference.

“This was our fourth tournament win of the summer and they have all been in the same kind of manner,” Early said. “That (semifinal) game against the team from Illinois (Sacred Heart-Griffin), I thought we probably shouldn’t have won that game. And then the game against Brentwood yesterday I thought we should have won. But these kids love to compete and the love 7-on-7. They don’t get out of Anderson a lot so we try to take them out some other places.”

Westside opened the championship game with a touchdown drive, but failed to convert the extra point attempt. Northwest responded with a drive of its own and on fourth down from inside the 10, quarterback Luke Shifflett connected with Will Blanchard for the score. The Bruins also failed to convert their extra point.

The Rams came back with a touchdown pass on their very first play, but again did not convert on the extra point to keep the score a 12-6. Northwest continued the back-and-forth affair with a touchdown by Jay Jones to tie the game at 12.

After Westside drove down and scored, this time the Rams did add a two-point conversion for a 20-12 lead. The Bruins once again found themselves in a fourth down situation on the ensuing drive, converting the first down on an angled route by Dominique Sistrunk. But on fourth down from around the 10-yard line, the ball glanced off of the hands of Will Blanchard to give the Rams the win.

“The whole game, they weren’t letting us beat them beat,” Shiflett said. “We had to go short a lot. And they pretty much bracketed our top two guys and took away our double moves. We’ve had a bunch of 7-on-7s building up for this one, but Westside is a really good team and just came out on top.”

Early said his quarterback was well deserving as the tournament’s MVP and is excited to see what the future holds for his senior signal caller.

“He’s the most accurate passer I’ve ever been around,” Early said. “He’s a Miami (Ohio) commitment but I think a lot of people missed out on him. But (Miami’s) last four quarterbacks have played in the league (the NFL) so he’s going to a good spot. He’s just such a smart kid. When you look up quarterback in the dictionary it should be a picture of him.”

Williamson, however, was quick to give credit to his defense.

“Our defense, I put them up against anybody in the country,” Williamson said. “They fly around and make plays. They are a special group and made some great plays today.”

He also said that this tournament was the toughest of the four the Rams had won this summer.

“This tournament was definitely the toughest,” Williamson said. “We don’t really worry about winning it, we are just trying to get better, perfect our craft and if we have a chance to win we try to take advantage of it. Northwest Whitfield was probably the toughest team and Brentwood had a good team too, but everyone was tough. There wasn’t any bad teams in the competition.”

It’s perhaps fitting that it was a defensive stop that sealed Westside’s championship. While 7-on-7s often become offensive showcases, it was the defensive unit that was instrumental in getting the Rams to the final game in the first place.

In its semifinal game against Sacred Heart-Griffin, Westside fell behind 13-12 after missing a conversion attempt after a score. The ball went back over to Sacred Heart, but the Rams defense held, taking the lead in process 14-13. However, Sacred Heart went on to keep the Rams out of the end zone to take back the advantage. It also gave Sacred Heart the chance to run out the clock offensively.

With their backs against the wall and the clock winding down, Westside forced two incompletions — the only way to stop the clock — setting up a final do-or-die play with just seconds remaining.

Westside’s defensive backs once again jumped in front of a Sacred Heart receiver, breaking up the pass and giving the Rams two more points, the win and the spot in the championship game.

“Normally in the big tournaments like this, when you get in the final four its usually low scoring and the defense takes over, because it’s boy dogs against boy dogs and good on good,” Early said. “They’re all going to be tight in the end.”

The Rams path to the finals also included a 27-15 victory over East Hall and a 28-16 win over Maplesville.

Northwest’s path to the finals was one game shorter thanks to being the No. 1 overall seed from pool play, but was certainly just as tough. The Bruins opened with an impressive 37-6 win over Valdosta and then beat Brentwood Academy 31-20.

In the semifinal against Brentwood, Blanchard caught the first two touchdown passes to give Northwest a 14-6 lead. Brentwood came back to tie it, but Tanner Cline snagged a touchdown pass and the Bruins converted a two-point conversion to make the score 22-14.

The Eagles then came back to score, but the Bruins held on the two-point try and led 22-20. A touchdown to Jones gave Northwest a two-possession lead at 29-20, but a defensive stop sealed the victory.

Despite coming up a bit short, Robinson was incredibly proud of the effort from his team as they scored more points than any team in the field and beat three state champions as well as a storied program in Valdosta over the weekend.

“Valdosta ran through the loser’s bracket pretty handily and we put it on those guys,” Robinson said. “Our kids are competitors and win or lose we had a great weekend in a greatly run tournament. If in a region championship or a playoff game we are in a situation and we learned something from this that helps us then, it was all worth it.”

Brentwood Academy, out of Nashville, was a Tennessee state champion in 2015 and ended the tournament as the only team to beat Westside, getting a 27-22 win in pool play. Brentwood’s two losses in the tournament came to Dalton in pool play and Northwest in the semifinal. But the Eagles came back with a victory over Sacred Heart-Griffin to finish third.

Brentwood Director of Football Operations Brian Lilly was pleased with his team’s result and with the quality of the field.

“Given we played 11 games in two days, I’m proud of our teams for fighting,” Lilly said. “We put some guys in positions they don’t normally play. There were some lulls in the middle but we lost to two really good teams and we will keep getting better. I think this put us in a very good position for the fall…

“I think every team was a good team. There were some close ones we came away with and some close ones we didn’t. Every team we played was great sports and great competitors and we are definitely glad we got the chance to come play here.”

Sacred Heart will leave Dalton with their third consecutive top four finish at the Southeastern 7-on-7 Championship. The Cyclones had an 18-10 win over North Florida Christian to start the day and beat Pace Academy 17-6 before falling to Westside and Brentwood.

Sacred Heart coach Ken Leonard said the team had it’s opportunities, but still had a great experience.

“We had a real bad start to the tournament and the team that played for the championship (Northwest) beat us,” Leonard said. “Then two games in a row we just have to complete a pass to win the game and we lost, but that’s how it is with great competition. I think our kids really grew up and we found out some things about our team. We loved coming down here and enjoyed white water rafting on Thursday.”

After opening the Gold bracket with an 18-16 victory over Jefferson Davis, Valdosta endured the humbling experience in the loss to Northwest. But the Wildcats responded by winning three consecutive games in the consolation bracket to finish in fifth place. Valdosta defeated North Florida Christian, Dalton and Bowling Green to end the tournament.

“I’m proud of our guys, even though there was some disappointment today,” Valdosta coach Alan Rodemaker said. “I thought we lost our character a bit in the loss to Northwest Whitfield and didn’t finish the game with great effort. But we had a nice talk and it gave me the opportunity to talk and coach these kids.

“We got a second chance to beat Dalton after they beat us real close yesterday. Coach (Bill) Napier told me ‘Your boys are playing with confidence’ and we started to see that today. When we are playing with confidence, we are a really good team. But when we’re not, we’re really bad.”