Bear Fans, I believe I have found my next business venture, a mobile cardiologist who just follows the Bears around from week to week. Between an overtime thriller and a game-winning touchdown with 37 seconds left, the last two Fridays have tested every heart in Belton and Honea Path, and if yours is still pumping, I commend you. This week we break down the comeback against Powdersville, size up a Wren team that very few people outside our two towns think BHP can beat, and close with a special note about someone who never missed a broadcast.
BHP hosted another Anderson County opponent last Friday in the Powdersville Patriots, and for a possession apiece the defenses ran the show, with both sides forcing three-and-outs to open the game. The Bears broke through on their second drive, covering 64 yards in 10 plays to get on the board first. Powdersville answered right back with a nine-play, 63-yard touchdown drive of its own, and the game sat tied at 7 just as the second quarter started.
That second quarter is where the night started to get away. On BHP’s next possession, Powdersville forced a safety to take a 9-7 lead, then took the free kick and drove 48 yards for a 33-yard field goal. The Bears went three-and-out and punted, and a 37-yard return set Powdersville up at the BHP 18. The defense held there and forced a 38-yard field goal try, except it turned out not to be a field goal try at all. Powdersville faked it, flipped the ball to the kicker, and he sprinted 21 yards into the end zone to make it 18-7 with just under three minutes left in the half. Give the Patriots credit for the call, because nothing ages a fan base faster than a fake field goal right before halftime.
It looked like the wave had crashed down on the Bears. They took over with 2:41 left in the half and used every second of it, marching 80 yards in 10 plays for a touchdown and converting the two-point try to go into the locker room trailing just 18-15.
Go back through how Powdersville got to 18 and only one of those scores came off a full-length drive, the 63-yard touchdown march in the first quarter. The rest came from a safety, a 48-yard drive after the free kick, and a short field set up by a punt return. The defense spent most of that first half protecting ground that had already been given away, so halftime wasn’t the panic moment the scoreboard made it look like.
The second half is the part of this season Bear fans should frame. Powdersville managed two first downs and 40 total yards after halftime, and its longest play was a single 10-yard run. We spent a good bit of time last week on all the weapons in that Powdersville offense, and when the Patriots needed points, the BHP defense made sure none of those weapons mattered. Five straight second-half drives ended in punts, and the sixth ended on downs. This defense has been doing some version of that almost every Friday this fall, and I am running out of ways to say how good it has been.
The offense, for its part, kept moving the ball without quite finishing anything. BHP gained 169 yards after halftime but went just 1 for 7 on third down, which is how you pile up yardage and still have nothing new on the scoreboard with the clock running out. Then came the last drive.
BHP took over at its own 48 with 2:34 left, down 18-15, needing a field goal to tie or a touchdown to win with the region race riding on it. Rylan Crooks and Malachi Bohler shared the work at quarterback, and the drive nearly died on the first set of downs when the Bears faced a fourth-and-7. Crooks found Bohler for just enough to move the chains. Remember that 1-for-7 number on third down? The conversion this offense needed most all night showed up on fourth down instead. From there Bohler broke off a 9-yard run, Cam Robinson added 13 more on the ground, and suddenly the ball was sitting at the 7 with about a minute to play. Two plays later Robinson walked in from 3 yards out, and BHP led 21-18 with 37 seconds left.
Powdersville got one last shot. Four plays later the Patriots had lost a yard, turned it over on downs, and handed BHP the ball and the victory formation.
As I reviewed the game, I kept coming back to one word, and that word was resolve. A lot of us on the outside looking in thought this could be a rough season, and after an 0-2 start nobody would have blamed you for thinking it. I’m not saying the job is finished. But where this team sits now, five straight wins later, says a lot about the coaching staff, top to bottom, and the work they have put in and the belief they have built in this group. It says even more about the players. It is easy for a teenager, or a full-grown adult for that matter, to let outside voices take over his thinking, especially after losing the first two. I have watched BHP teams through the years refuse to do that, and it seems to run in the DNA of two small towns that keep lining up against the big boys of South Carolina football. Last Friday I saw it again. It wasn’t a single play, and it probably wasn’t even the final touchdown. It was something in the whole of the night, and for the millionth time it made Bear fans proud to ask, “How Bout Them Bears.”
Week 8 Preview
BHP stays in Anderson County this week and heads just up the road to face the Wren Hurricanes, as tough an assignment as the Bears will draw all year. Wren is 8-1 and ranked among the best teams in the entire state. Its only loss came in the opener against Daniel, 42-28, and since then the Hurricanes have beaten Eastside 49-12, Travelers Rest 61-0, T.L. Hanna 21-14, Southside Christian 27-0, Lugoff-Elgin 33-20, Powdersville 34-10, Emerald 37-30, and Palmetto 42-21 last week. That adds up to 332 points in nine games, nearly 37 a night, and outside of that opener nobody has scored more than 30 on them. With RPI now deciding playoff seeding, Wren sits second in 3A. BHP, at 5-2 overall and 2-0 in the region, sits sixth.
If you were hoping common opponents would offer a shortcut, they don’t help much. Wren beat Powdersville by 24, and BHP needed the final 37 seconds to beat the same team by 3. Daniel, the one team to beat Wren, also beat BHP. On paper the Hurricanes are the better team, and very few people outside Belton and Honea Path are giving the Bears a chance. I understand why. I also believe the paper is missing a couple of things, and we’ll get there.
Everything Wren does starts on the ground, and it starts with two senior backs. Muntu Brown has 744 yards and 12 touchdowns on 124 carries this season, an even six yards a pop. That comes on top of a junior year in which he ran 229 times for 1,686 yards and 20 touchdowns, so there’s a reason his name comes up when people talk about the best backs in South Carolina. He is a different kind of runner than anything BHP has seen so far, a powerful back who is faster at the top end than a runner his size has any business being and who would rather go looking for contact than avoid it. He runs like he wants tacklers to pay early so they hesitate late.
Josiah Mosley is the other half of that backfield, and his numbers border on silly, with 587 yards on just 50 carries for 11.7 yards every time he touches it. When Brown sits, Mosley spells him without changing the plan. He’s a change-of-pace back who still likes to run between the tackles.
The backs get the headlines, but the player who should worry Bear fans most is the one handing them the ball. Jacob Owings has completed 64.4 percent of his 149 passes for 1,563 yards, 17 touchdowns, and one interception. That works out to better than 10 yards every time he throws, and a 17-to-1 touchdown-to-interception ratio means he almost never gives a defense anything for free. Add 35 carries for 216 yards and three scores and you have a true dual threat. That’s what makes him the equalizer in this offense, because any defense that crowds the line to slow down Brown and Mosley is making a bet Owings is fully capable of collecting on.
His top two targets know what to do when the ball arrives. Caiden Hill has 31 catches for 464 yards and six touchdowns, and Jack Hughes has 28 catches for 658 yards and six more. Do the math on Hughes and he’s averaging 23.5 yards a catch, which usually means the ball has traveled a long way by the time it finds him.
None of it works without the group up front, and Wren’s offensive line is every bit as good as its skill players. Senior Holden Lane, a North-South All-Star Game participant, anchors an athletic line that is just as comfortable winning a double team as it is leading the way in space.
Defensively, the Hurricanes play a three-man front and load the field with linebackers and safeties, betting that speed can do what size usually tries to do against BHP’s ground game. Junior defensive end JT Forrester is the one to track. He’s quick with his hands and good at getting separation from a blocker, but the best part of his game is how fast he diagnoses a play and runs it down. What makes this unit dangerous is how it plays together. Everybody knows where they’re supposed to be and they tackle as a group, which is usually the difference between a fast defense and a good one.
So here’s where I land. Wren deserves every bit of the respect it’s getting, and this is a tough matchup for the Bears. A few things don’t show up in the season stats, and they happen to be what beat Powdersville last Friday.
Start with a streak, because this game may come down to it. BHP has gone 35 straight games without allowing a 100-yard rusher, and since 2014 the Bears are 95-22 when they keep every back under 100. When someone gets there, that record falls to 19-15. History also says Wren is the team most likely to break it, because no program has produced more 100-yard rushers against BHP since 2014, five of the 36. With Brown and Mosley in the same backfield, the Bears have to keep two backs under that line instead of one. If they do, they are playing the kind of game BHP has won about four times out of five for more than a decade.
Then there’s this defense and its habit of rising when the moment gets big. From a returning standout like Ty Dubose to up-and-coming players like Adrian McGlotten and Amire Rosemond, the defense and the staff calling it have found something to dial up whenever a game was in the balance, and Powdersville’s second half was only the latest example. BHP has allowed just 7 third-quarter points all season and has been outscored in a third quarter only three times since 2024, which suggests this staff wins the halftime adjustment battle a lot more often than it loses it. Against an offense like this, a second half that looks like most of the others would do just fine.
And then, as we covered in the Powdersville review, there’s resolve. This team had every excuse to write the season off, and some people did it for them. New coach, transferred players, the playoff home game ban, on and on. The Bears worked anyway, stayed focused, and have put together a year that, while not finished, could end up looking a whole lot better than anybody predicted before the season. These are the kinds of teams that are never down and out and never walk into a game without hope, and anyone who has followed BHP for long recognizes them on sight. It runs deeper than any one roster. It’s Bear DNA, and I don’t see Friday being any different.
So pack accordingly, because the forecast calls for Hurricanes. I say Them Big Bad Bears weather the storm and come home one game away from a region championship.
Previous Matchup: 2023 Week 10
Score: BHP 51 -- Wren 14
2023 Week 10 BHP Stats:
Team Rushing: 37 rushes for 338 yards and 4 TDs
Team Passing: 5/9/2 for 46 yards
Team Total: 46 plays for 384 yards and 4 Offensive TDs
Rushing Leader: Marquise Henderson - 21 rushes for 235 yards and 3 TDs
Passing Leader: Noah Thomas - 5/9/2 for 46 yards
Receiving Leader: Qua Alexander - 5 receptions for 46 yards (1 punt return for TD)
Defensive Leader: Omari Jackson - 2 Solo, 2 Assist, 1 QB Hurries, 2 Sacks, 1 Forced Fumble, 1 INT, 1 Defensive TD and 48 Defensive Points
Wren Team Yardage:
Team Rushing: 44 rushes for 167 yards and 1 TD
Team Passing: 14/28/2 for 168 and 1 TD
Team Total: 72 plays for 335 yards and 2 TDs
Rushing Leader: Reese Price - 22 rushes for 111 yards
Passing Leader: Colten Bagwell - 14/28/2 for 168 and 1 TD
Receiving Leaders: Braden Binnicker - 5 receptions for 73 yards.
Quick Stats
- BHP is 23-17 all time against Wren and 6-4 in the last 10 meetings.
- BHP has allowed only 10 first-quarter points and 7 third-quarter points this season. Both would come in under 13, the fewest points BHP has allowed in any single quarter over a full season since 2014.
- BHP has been outscored in the third quarter just three times since 2024.
- BHP is 109-22 when it out-rushes its opponent since 2014.
- Since 2014, BHP is 7-15 when it allows 200 or more rushing yards.
- BHP has gone 35 consecutive games without allowing a 100-yard rusher.
- Since 2014, BHP is 95-22 when it does not allow a 100-yard rusher and 19-15 when a rusher goes over 100.
- Since 2014, no BHP player has led the team in both rushing and receiving.
- Since 2014, Wren has produced more 100-yard rushers against BHP than any other opponent, 5 of the 36.
- BHP is averaging 7.86 penalties per game, on pace for the program’s least-penalized season since 2016, when the Bears averaged 7.46.
Wrap Up
Two weeks ago it was overtime, last week it was the final minute, and I would love to tell you this Friday will be easier on everybody’s blood pressure. It won’t. Wren has a backfield built to wear a defense down and a quarterback who makes you pay for trying to stop it, and anybody expecting a comfortable night on the road hasn’t been paying attention.
This BHP team has spent the whole fall turning other people’s expectations into background noise, though. The defense has been at its best in the moments that decide games, and the offense, for all its stalled drives, has come through when there was no time left to waste. Win Friday and a region championship is one game away. So check your heart medication and make the short trip up the road, because Them Bears don’t do anything the easy way.
Prediction: BHP 21 - Wren 20
We want to see every Bear Fan packed into those away stands this Friday to support Them Big Bad Bears. If you can't, stay connected and get instant notifications when our posts drop by following us on Facebook and X. Stay plugged in, because come Friday, we'll be dropping the GameDay Graphic and providing final stats after the game. And follow our live game stats during the game at Exceeding Stats.
Special Note
Bear Fans, we all know that BHP football means a lot to a lot of people. This weekend I lost one of those people. My grandmother passed away this week, and I do not say that asking any for sympathy, because our family knows this is not the last time we will see her and she is in a far better place than we are. I mention that to tell you this. We all have those people in our lives that truly care for us.
My grandmother graduated from Honea Path High, sent two daughters through BHP and then saw my sister and myself graduate from BHP (the first three extremely better students than I was). And she was as proud of us, and my other cousins, as any grandparent. And there are so many things that I remember and loved about her. But if you ask anyone that ever came to her house on Friday Night, there was only one thing on, the BHP Bears on the radio. From her house you could see the stadium lights and hear the band playing. But in her house she was fully tuned into Joel Kay and the radio broadcast. She would listen each and every week. Listening for my name when I played or the mention of those Evans boys once dad and I took over the stats on Friday night. Even if family was staying with her from out of town, or even a group of college students down with my cousin were staying at her house, the radio was on.
It didn’t stop there though. When I played, I usually stopped by her house just 200 yards from mine on a Saturday morning after a game. It usually started with “Those Bears really handled them” or “yall keep it too close for how I like”. Still sore from the night before, we would talk about the game and she would feed me. I am sure she was in some part the reason I played on the line rather than a skill position. Later on, she would call me during the week and ask how I thought the Bears would fare. I would answer and the conversation would drift to something else like family, or work. But she would always tell me she would be listening, and I knew she would.
I say all this not asking you to be sad for me or my family. We are truly fine. We loved her and we will miss her. And not because BHP was a true passion of hers, but she knew it meant something to me and my family and she loved me and that made it special to her. But I do ask that you take time this week, take a moment to think about those people in your life. Who are thinking about you, always interested in you, who are so proud of you. It doesn’t have to be football, sports or even anything about BHP. Just take a moment to thank them, to talk to them.
And I know this Friday, there will be one less listener of the BHP broadcast, but maybe you could tune in and just think about those people who truly care.