Coleman lifts SC past Capital

To Shaad Coleman, it was great that he led South Charleston to its first victory over Capital since 1993. It was fantastic that South Charleston has earned its first Class AAA playoff berth since its 1994 championship season. But for Coleman, it was almost as satisfying to play well against his friends on the other side of the ball. - advertisement - That the senior did Friday night, hitting 8-of-11 passes for 128 yards and a touchdown in the Black Eagles’ 21-9 victory before 2,000 or so at Oakes Field. South Charleston appears headed for the No. 8 spot on a bonus-point tiebreaker with John Marshall, assuming the Monarchs beat winless Spring Valley today. The Monarchs would play the Black Eagles at Laidley Field. Capital appears headed for No. 14, losing a head-to-head tiebreaker with Cabell Midland for the 13th spot. Friday night, Coleman also ran for 51 yards to account for 179 of the Eagles’ 244 total. “Last year, when we played them in the second game of the season, I did horrible,” Coleman said, recounting a 17-6 loss. “I mean, I wasn’t composed; I guess I was rattled. I had a lot of friends on the other team and I wanted to show that I could play. And I guess I tried too hard. “This year, I’m a senior, it was Senior Night, a lot of people here. Just stay composed.” He turned in big plays on all three SC scoring drives, scored in each of the first three quarters. On the first drive, his 17-yard run and 9-yard pass to Shane Hall put the Eagles on the Capital 6-yard line, setting up Tyrone Lang’s 1-yard scoring run. He threw for SC’s second TD, hitting Jeremy Booker with a smooth 20-yard lob. Booker was the intended receiver all along, but he had to squirm free from coverage. Coleman considered pulling the ball down and running. “I had to wait on him a little bit,” Coleman said. “If I was going to get hit, I would have taken the hit, but I had to release the ball and let him run under it.” - advertisement - That gave SC a 14-0 lead with 7:26 left in the half, a lead the Eagles didn’t relinquish. The Cougars didn’t make it that simple, however. Malik Witten, who went 8-of-14 for 149 yards, hit a wide-open Ryan Toler from 19 yards out with 57 seconds left in the half. Jerry Harris got the 13-play, 70-yard drive going with a 24-yard screen pass from Witten. With the Cougars receiving the second-half kickoff, they were poised to tie the game. After Witten hit Toler for 13 yards to the SC 46, the Cougars pushed toward a touchdown with a steady diet of counters. But as Harris muscled his way to the SC 2, the Cougars were flagged for holding. Then Aaron Slusher and Chad Clay made key tackles, forcing Capital into a 28-yard Tyler Sheets field-goal try, which he yanked wide left. Coleman made the Cougars pay in a hurry, hitting Deion Spurlock for a 41-yard catch and run. Tommy Spurlock took over with runs of 16 and 11 yards, then eventually barreled over a defender at the pylon for a 3-yard touchdown run. SC survived one last joust from the Cougars in the fourth quarter. Pushed back to a whopping third-and-43 after holding and unsportsmanlike-conduct penalties, the Cougars still converted when Harris took a screen pass 55 yards to the SC 17. But on the next play, Witten threw an indecision-induced interception to Booker. “I think he started to throw it away and then he probably thought he could squeeze the ball in,” said Capital coach Jack Woolwine. “He’s done a great job for us, and he just made a mistake.” Capital finished the scoring when SC conceded a safety in punt formation. It did nothing to dampen another big victory for coach Vernon Redman, who struggled to win six games in the previous four years. “We’re tickled to death,” Redman said. “The athletes did it. We, the coaches, have been around here five years. We haven’t changed. The athletes have made the commitment and they’ve done it.”