Burke County Overwhelms Harlem in Bear Den
Bears gain more than 400 yards and force 4 turnovers in rout
Burke County overwhelmed Harlem 41-7 at home Friday as the Bears leapt to a 35-7 lead before halftime and never looked back. Burke County gained a total of 434 yards, including 319 on the ground, compared to only 191 total yards for Harlem. The Bears forced 4 turnovers, including one that resulted in a touchdown, and another that prevented 7 points for the Bulldogs.
Burke County improved to 4-1 overall and 2-0 in class 3A, region 4 action. The win sets up a highly anticipated matchup against #7 Thomson (6-0, 3-0) next week at “The Brickyard,” the home of the Bulldogs. Harlem fell to 4-3 overall and 2-1 in region play.
“This probably was our most complete ball game,” Burke County head coach Eric Parker said after the game. “And I don’t think it could come at a better time, simply for the fact that we are in the heart of our region schedule… I just thought that it was a great… what I like to call a community effort.”
“A Community Effort”
Charlie Dorsey rushed for 150 yards, Eldrick “Tiger” Williams added 70, and A’merre Williams tallied another 69 for the Bears. All three backs scored a touchdown, and they each carried the ball 12 times.
Junior quarterback Marshall Flowers, who took the second half off, completed 5 of 9 passes for 105 yards and 2 touchdowns.
Jaylen Golphin scored two touchdowns. The first came on a 42-yard reception that gave Burke County a 14-0 lead with 1:42 left in the first quarter. And the second came on a 65-yard pick-six right before halftime.
Golphin also recovered a fumble when Brandon Lively stripped Harlem’s Johnathan Howard of the ball just before Howard was set to cross the goal line with Burke County leading 14-0 early in the second quarter.
Burke County capitalized on Harlem’s misfortune with a 99-yard touchdown drive that ended when A’merre Williams punched it in from 1 yard out to give the Bears a 21-0 lead with 5:38 left in the second quarter. The key play of the drive was a relentless 46-yard run by Dorsey on third-and-5 that started at the 6-yard line of Burke County.
A Brief Ray of Hope…
Howard caught 3 passes for 58 yards, including an 11-yard touchdown reception that cut Burke County’s lead to 21-7 with 3:27 left in the second quarter. But immediately after that score provided some hope for Bulldog fans, Burke County marched 66 yards in 7 plays to take a 28-7 lead with 1:08 remaining in the second quarter on a 3-yard touchdown run by Tiger Williams.
And then fewer than 20 seconds ticked off of the game clock before Golphin picked off Ryan Newman’s pass and returned it 65 yards for a score, Burke County’s fifth touchdown of the first half.
The Virtues of Playing a Difficult Schedule
The Bears looked sharp eight days after suffering their first loss of the season, a 59-28 decision to #4 ranked Benedictine (class 4A) in a non-region game in Waynesboro. Parker, who put Laney on the map as a state title contender before leaving Augusta for Waynesboro in 2007, talked about why he plays a difficult schedule when I asked him if the loss to Benedictine helped focus his players.
“It’s funny you say that,” Parker started. “Coach (Lemuel) Lackey and I were up at Laney, and we finally got a chance to start winning, and we just got together and decided that there’s no way that you can be a good football team unless you’re tested. I thought we played some really good football teams in Richmond Hill and North Augusta. And then of course Benedictine probably has a chance to be right there at the end in quad-A. So you learn a lot about yourself. You learn about your team. And they learn a lot about themselves and each other. And we didn’t really like what we saw at the end of the ball game last week. So the challenge was… ‘let’s clean it up, let’s understand what it takes to win.’ And I thought the guys listened to it.”
Highly Anticipated Matchup Ahead
As he ended the interview, coach Parker went where the minds of all of us high school football followers have been focused ever since the schedule was released: the October 15 matchup between the two best teams in our area, a rivalry that never disappoints.
“We’re excited. But like we always say, there’s some work to do, some things to clean up. We gotta go back to work,” Parker said. “We go to the Brickyard, which will be… another tough task.”