TABOR CITY — Despite preparing and knowing what South Columbus’ rushing attack had coming into Friday night’s Three Rivers Conference football championship game, stopping it in person was the biggest challenge for the Fairmont.

Behind over 500 yards from its top three rushers coming into the game, the Stallions broke away early to run away with the conference championship in a 48-26 home win over the Golden Tornadoes.

“Flat out, I thought they were better prepared and they had a great desire to win,” Fairmont coach Mark Heil said. “We made some mistakes on offense and it was their night, not ours.”

“We had a game plan and we knew we could run the ball just like they can throw the ball,” said South Columbus coach Russel Dove, who went undefeated in conference in his first season with the program. “If we could get ahead two touchdowns, we knew we could control the game and we did just that. … Coming in we were hoping to slow them down, and we slowed down enough.”

While running backs Dennis Leggett and Trequan Bellamy draw a lot of attention out of the backfield with their elusiveness and speed outside of the tackles, it was fullback Seth Buffkin who wreaked the most havoc with his power running up the middle for the Stallions (9-2, 7-0 TRC). Buffkin finished with over 200 yards rushing and three touchdowns, with most of his work coming in the second half.

“(Buffkin)’s a bear, he pounds and runs it real hard,” Heil said. “I was more worried about that than the speed off the edge because that’s the kind of running that hurts us, the pounding that runs right at us.”

The win not only was a reason for celebration in winning the conference title for South Columbus, but also came with a hint of revenge after Fairmont (7-4, 6-1 TRC) handed the Stallions two lopsided losses last season.

“We talked about how last year was last year and we’re a different team this team just like they are a different team,” Dove said.

“Whiteville is usually our rival, but Fairmont beat us bad two times last year and we wanted to return the favor,” Buffkin said.

Buffkin scored two touchdowns in the second half — one each in the third and fourth quarter — as South Columbus pushed a 21-12 halftime lead out to 41-12 early in the fourth quarter. He also added a five-yard score early in the second quarter to give the Stallions the nine-point lead at the intermission.

While Buffkin’s running took over the second half, Leggett finished his senior night with over 200 yards and a pair of scores doing most of his work coming in the first half. On his second run of the game, Leggett scored from 46 yards out to tie the game at 6-all, and his two-yard rush for a touchdown on the next drive put South Columbus up 14-6.

Fairmont hung tight early as both teams traded scores on their first two possessions. Quarterback Julius Caulder connected with Jordan Waters on the first drive of the game for a 33-yard touchdown and then with Derrick Arnette on the next offensive position for a 25-yard touchdown to cut the lead to 14-12.

With its ground and pound running attack that ate chunks of time off the clock and a couple turnovers at inopportune times, South Columbus was able to keep the Fairmont offense off the field. The Stallions recovered the onside kick after their first touchdown to set up another score early in the game to build momentum, but it was a third-quarter interception by Robbie Spencer on a tipped pass that turned the tides after the Fairmont defense got a stop to start the second half on the previous series.

“The interception they ran back was the back-breaker,” Heil said. “That was a tipped pass and a bad break and we started to lose our discipline.”

Another offensive miscue that came back to bite Fairmont was back-to-back empty trips to the red zone late in the first half while South Columbus held a nine-point lead. A dropped touchdown pass by Waters and poor clock management led to both drives ending.

The playoffs await both teams moving to next week with the field set to be announced this afternoon. Even with the loss to end the regular season, the Golden Tornadoes still see it as a chance to continue from the success it had this season that included winning seven games in a row.

“I think they’ll be OK,” Heil said. “We’re playing in the playoffs. Once you get there, who knows what’s going to happen. You’ve got to play a little harder and practice a little harder.”

Rodd Baxley | The Robesonian South Columbus fullback Seth Buffkin runs through the tackle of Malik Arnette in the second half of the Stallions’ 48-26 win to claim the Three Rivers Conference title over Fairmont on Friday night.
https://www.robesonian.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/web1_DSC_1060.jpgRodd Baxley | The Robesonian South Columbus fullback Seth Buffkin runs through the tackle of Malik Arnette in the second half of the Stallions’ 48-26 win to claim the Three Rivers Conference title over Fairmont on Friday night.
Stallions run away from Tornadoes in 48-26 win

By Jonathan Bym

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Contact Jonathan Bym on Twitter @Jonathan_Bym.