By Shannon Fagan, WEIS Sports Director
CENTRE – The current Cherokee County Warrior football team was just newborns when the 2009 team won the school’s first state championship. Those seniors posted 41 wins in their careers, which was the most in school history.
On Friday night against Westminster Christian in the first round of the Class 4A state playoffs in a state semifinal rematch from last year, the 2024 Warrior seniors eclipsed that mark. They won their 42nd game of their careers with a physical 48-13 victory.
“The 2009 state championship team, our school holds that team very special,” said senior Tristan Brown, who finished with 76 yards on just four carries. “For us to get that record is crazy. We’re really proud of it.”
“I feel like it’s a special moment,” said fellow senior Tae Diamond, who scored on his only two carries of the game on runs of 9 and 38 yards. “It’s an honor. We knew what we had to come in and do. We got it, and now we’re the winningest class. That feels good, but we’ve still got maybe four more games to go. We can add to it.”
Cherokee County head coach Jacob Kelley said he hopes everyone in the community realizes how special the 2024 Warriors are.
“The guys we had last year and the runs they went on, everybody kind of assumed we’d take a step back this year, but these seniors said ‘No, not a chance. Keep it rolling.’”
Rolling is what the Warriors (10-1) did on Friday night from the opening kickoff.
Jayvierre Henderson dashed all the way to the Wildcat 9-yard line to set up a Diamond score on the game’s first offensive play. Following Ben Frampton’s extra point, the Warriors held a 7-0 advantage just 23 seconds into the game.
But Westminster Christian (6-5) responded with a 14-play, 79-yard drive that ate up over 6 ½ minutes of the first-quarter clock. Quarterback Houston Scott tossed a 30-yard touchdown pass to Adam Hartman to complete the drive and tie the game at 7.
After that, it was all Warriors from there.
Keyshawn Woods ran for 42 of his game-high 107 yards on the Warriors’ ensuing drive, capping it off with his 3-yard touchdown run to give Cherokee County the lead back at 14-7.
Following a Wildcat punt, the Warriors scored again. This time, quarterback Adam Griffith connected with Ben Moseley on a 35-yard touchdown pass on the quarter’s final play, extending the Warrior edge to 21-7.
Three more Wildcat punts in the second quarter all yielded Warrior touchdowns. Diamond delivered his second of the game on a 38-yard run. Woods scored again on a 41-yard burst, and Griffith went over the top to find Ethan Glass for a 70-yard scoring strike to push the Warriors out to a 41-7 advantage.
Griffith completed all three of his pass attempts for 143 yards and two touchdowns.
Westminster Christian stopped the bleeding on Scott’s second touchdown toss to Hartman just before halftime. This one went for 26 yards, and it cut the Warrior lead to 41-13 at the break.
Scott completed 11 of his 22 pass attempts for 120 yards and the two touchdowns. Hartman had five catches for 94 yards and the two scores. Evan McClure led the Wildcat ground game with 46 yards on 17 totes.
Following three injuries to Wildcat players – two of which had to be carted out on stretchers – and the Warriors’ substantial lead, both teams agreed to play the second half with a running clock.
The only score of the second half was a 58-yard touchdown run by Jayshawn Stroup with 4:09 remaining in the third quarter.
“It’s just our standard. We want to play physical,” Kelley said. “We don’t want to wait. We want to attack. The guys on both sides of the ball, I feel like we got after it. We want to be aggressive and not wait on things to happen and create opportunities.”
The Warriors have another opportunity to add to the current seniors’ win total with a second-round home playoff game against Central of Florence next Friday in a rematch of last year’s first round. Cherokee County won that game 56-28.
“They had a lot of rushing yards against us last year. I know that’s going to get our defensive guys fired up and ready,” Kelley said. “Any time you get to host in the later rounds, we’re definitely excited.”
“I feel like they’re a good team,” Diamond said. “We can’t go in and take them as soft. We know what they run. We’re going to get in here and watch film on them. We really have a goal we want to meet this year (winning another state championship).”