An incredibly fast start in the first half allowed the Fort Mill Yellow Jackets to grab a win over rivals Nation Ford Falcons.
Fort Mill held off a fourth quarter rally by the Falcons for a 9-7 win. It gave the Jackets a season split with the Falcons and was their first win over them since 2021.
“It was a hell of an effort by our team,” said Fort Mill head coach Alex Tindall. “The senior leadership with this team is unbelievable. Everything we did today was because of the work they did over the last four years.”
The match started off as a defensive battle between the two teams. About halfway through the first quarter, Patrick Yarbrough scored to put Fort Mill on the board.
Two early turnovers by Nation Ford in the opening period gave the Jackets some extra opportunities on offense. Charlie McGuire doubled the Jackets score with roughly 1:50 left in the first quarter as Fort Mill went up 2-0.
The Jackets’ Maddox Baucom opened the second quarter scoring for Fort Mill about 65 seconds into the period. Fort Mill kept their foot on the gas as McGuire scored his second goal of the match with 9:24 left in the half.
Yarborough scored two more times before the four-minute mark in the second quarter putting the Jackets up 6-0 and giving Yarborough a hat trick for the game.
Nation Ford took several timeouts trying to regroup, but struggled with turnovers and weren’t as physical as the Jackets were in the first half.
Yarborough put Fort Mill up 7-0, before the Falcons broke through in the final minute of the first half with goals by Quinn Tauzin and Josh Ameo.
Fort Mill opened the second half holding the ball looking for a good shot, but also running time off the clock.
Tristan Ross scored for the Falcons about four minutes into the third quarter. Baucom rallied Fort Mill with his second goal of the match about 4:22 left in the quarter to stop the bleeding caused by Nation Ford. The two goals were all the offense either side could muster up. Nation Ford still trailed by five entering the final quarter.
Feeling confident, Fort Mill opened the fourth quarter with a goal by Carson Maloney two and a half minutes into the period.
Nation Ford continued to struggle with holding onto ground balls as the match became increasingly physical in the fourth.
Ameo cut into the Jackets lead with 4:34 left in the match scoring his second goal of the match. He would secure a hat trick less than a minute later with his third goal.
Ameo took over for Nation Ford as the fourth quarter wore on spurring his teammates involvement as well with Trevor Keaton scoring with 1:01 left in the match to make the score 9-7 with the Jackets holding to a two-goal advantage. The Falcons tried hard to tie the match, but the Fort Mill defense held them off in the final minute.
Fort Mill improved to 9-6 overall and 3-3 in Region 3-5A, while Nation Ford dropped to 9-5 overall and 3-3 in the region. Neither team has anymore region games, while the Falcons have two more non-region games next week.
April 10 Roundup
The third game of the Nation Ford-Catawba Ridge baseball series was rained out and is now scheduled to be played on Friday, April 11.
The Fort Mill girls’ lacrosse team beat Nation Ford 14-3 to improve to 4-0 in Region 3-5A and 5-7 overall. Nation Ford dropped to 2-11 on the season and 1-4 in the region.
The Catawba Ridge girls’ lacrosse team beat Clover 12-4 to improve to 9-6 overall and 2-4 in Region 3-5A.
Mac Banks: mac@fortmillprepsports.com, @fortprep
