Why would you schedule Sumter for your homecoming?

Will someone please tell me why someone with any respect for themselves or their players schedule the Sumter Gamecocks for his or her school’s homecoming? That would be like my mother inviting Rush Limbaugh to speak at Mount Zion AME Church on a Sunday morning.
Well, someone at South Florence High School was that crazy. And like we expected, Sumter crashed the party- big time - to the tune of a 52-26 beatdown of the Bruins.
The Gamecocks rolled up 49 points in the first half, including 91-yard return of the opening kickoff for a touchdown by Rodrick McDowell and a fumbled punt attempt that was recovered by T.J. Devine for another score.
The homecoming celebration at halftime felt kind of silly after that kind of blasting.
Now I am not trying to bury South Florence. Everyone knew that Brian Lane was walking into a program that was left in shambles by the mismanaging of Ken Cribb (no disrespect to Hemingway’s esteemed coach), so it was no surprise that the Bruins wouldn’t be very good. They will get better, just not this year.
Just look at the second half. Now even though Sumter had its second team on the field, the Bruins played with heart and scored 26 points on offense. Defensively, they might have been even better. South forced two second-half turnovers, which left Sumter coach Paul Sorrells an unhappy coach.
“It was a tale of two ballgames tonight. South Florence is not as bad as people think they are,” he said. “I have high expectations of my team. If you’re going to put on the blue-and-gold for Sumter High School, you’re going to play hard.
“I don’t think (this team) played as hard in the second half.”
Next Thursday, the Bruins host Lower Richland. Hopefully they can use the momentum gained from the second half of Friday night’s game to get their second win of the season.
Sumter, on the other hand, will try to go undefeated in Florence for the season as they head back to Memorial Stadium to face West Florence and its hapless offense. But I’ll save my observations (and there are many) on that subject for another blog.

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