Seahawks regain form, rip Warriors

So much for any notion that all that hauling wood might not leave any time for knocking off the football rust.

Tyler Hamilton took back the opening kickoff 90 yards for a touchdown, Collin Kaiser threw two TD passes and Sterling White took a blocked punt back 24 yards for another score as Hilton Head Island ended its hurricane layoff with emphasis in a 38-7 romp over R.B. Stall.

P.J. Franklin added an 8-yard scoring run and Jonathan Orr booted a 27-yard field goal as the Seahawks (5-2) evened their Region 8-4A record at 1-1 and gave fans that turned out for “Seahawk Strong Night” something to cheer about early and often.

“We were glad to get back on the field,” Hamilton said. “Let’s try to win these next region games and get this thing rolling again.”

Fans were admitted for free, with a request for nonperishible food donations to go to Hilton Head Island’s Deep Well project. By halftime, the charity's small truck was filled with contributions. Stall officials even brought two bins of goods to contribute to the project.

The Seahawks themselves took the field with only two full practices of work, detouring precious practice time to helping island residents clean up from the destruction leveled by Hurricane Matthew two weeks ago. The team even fanned out to eight locales after Thursday’s walkthrough to stack more debris.

“There's no way for a coach to criticize the effort,” coach B.J. Payne said. “Missed tackles, missed blocks — if we miss those because we were out doing the right thing, that tradeoff is worth it.”

Stall managed to avoid the shutout with 9:53 left in the contest when Javonne Graham got behind the Seahawk defense to pull in a 77-yard touchdown pass from Jalen Bethea. But the Warriors (3-5, 0-3) spent much of the night operating from their own half of the field.

The Seahawks needed only 15 seconds to grab the lead. Though Hamilton juggled the opening kickoff, he got the handle and found a seam down the left sideline, not stopping until he crossed the goal line.

“That kind of helped everybody wake up,” Hamilton said.

The score remained 7-0 until late in the first quarter when Franklin blasted across for his scoring run. Then it was Kaiser’s turn, firing TD passes on Hilton Head’s next two possessions.

Jeff Shain: 843-706-8123, @JeffShain

This story was originally published October 21, 2016 at 11:27 PM with the headline "Seahawks regain form, rip Warriors."