ST. MATTHEWS -- Marteze Robinson charged toward the baseline, caught a pass and pivoted toward the open floor.

The McCormick Chiefs like to run and Robinson's intentions were to find a teammate sprinting toward the Calhoun County basket. There wasn't a Chief in sight, well not one he could get the ball to anyway.

"I saw jerseys everywhere," Robinson said. "Those boys are tough. They play good defense and they did what they had to do."

By the time Robinson, a junior guard, touched the ball his team already trailed 5-0 courtesy of a David Glover 3-pointer that he followed with a steal and two free throws. Robinson scored, drawing a foul and sinking a free throw to cut the lead to 5-1, but he only had one more field goal, a jumper in traffic from the free-throw line late in the quarter. Those three points were all the Chiefs could manage as Calhoun jumped out to a 27-3 lead after the first quarter en route to a 98-34 Class A boys' basketball playoff victory Saturday night. It was Calhoun County's 75th consecutive win, a South Carolina High School League record.

"We just have a real aggressive team like (Calhoun County head coach Zam Fredrick) has these kids here," McCormick head coach Johnny Goodwin said. "Let's just face it man, they are just better than we are. There ain't no doubt about it. They play defense, they play defense, and they play some more defense.

"Ain't no doubt about it," he continued. "They keep coming, they keep coming, they keep coming and everybody looks like...when they take one out they put in another one that is just as good."

The Saints forced 38 McCormick turnovers, and in the first half the Chiefs had more than twice as many turnovers, 25, as points, 12. Calhoun coasted through the first two quarters thanks to its trademark fullcourt pressure and fastbreaking, opportunistic offense. Glover opened the game by scoring the Saints' first seven points, but the quarter was highlighted by two thunderous dunks from Saints' star Alshon Jeffery, the first coming with 5:52 to go to make it 9-1 and the second coming off an alley-oop pass with 1:26 to go in the quarter to up the Saints lead to 25-1. In the second quarter, Marquel Davenport came off the bench for the Saints to hit three 3-pointers and score 11 of his 14 points. Jeffery had two more dunks, one a spectacular tomahawk off a steal, and the Saints took a 57-12 lead into the break.

"I didn't know what to expect from them coming in," Fredrick said. "Generally, we don't get to see them play because they are so far away. I did hear they like to play the fullcourt game, and I felt like that was going to be a game that suited us. We came in and did what we always do. We wanted to take them out of their sets a little bit, push them and see if they wanted to go and handle it. But, the ball started coming loose early and we were able to get in front. Once we got in front it was more or less a done deal."

The Saints opened the second half with a Jeffery 3-pointer and increased their lead to 61 points, 79-18, heading into the final quarter. Calhoun County's largest lead came in the fourth thanks to 10-straight Jacobee Wolfe points in a span of 55 seconds that put the Saints up 94-21 with 4:45 to play. Wolfe's hot streak brought the most drama of the night as the Calhoun County faithful began to push for their team to hit the century mark -- the Saints opened the playoffs by defeating Chesterfield 115-57 -- but McCormick scored 13 points over the final four-plus minutes of the game while the Saints' final points came on a layup from David Sims and a putback by Shamier Jeffery leaving them a field goal shy of 100.

Alshon Jeffery finished with a game-high 21 points for Calhoun County. Glover finished with 15 points for the Saints, Davenport 14 and Wolfe 13. Johnny Holmes led McCormick with nine points, all of which came on 3-pointers made over the final 2:38 of the game.

McCormick finished its season with a record of 13-9. Calhoun County improved to 26-0 and will now face Great Falls, who defeated Greenville Tech 64-56, at a neutral site Wednesday.

"We are prepared," Fredrick said. "We will take Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday will be ready to go."

CC (98) -- Alshon Jeffery 21, David Glover 15, Marquel Davenport 14, Jacobee Wolfe 13, Guinyard 8, Jeffery 8, Sims 4, Houser 4, Fredrick 4, Bonnette 3, Rumph 2, Haynes 2.

MHS (34) -- Johnny Holmes 9, Robinson 6, Simmons 6, Cisco 5, Freeman 4, Anderson 1, Adams 1, Moss 1, Josh Durant 1.

Halftime: CC 57-12

T&D Sports Editor Brian Linder can be contacted via e-mail at blinder@timesanddemocrat.com or by phone at 803-533-5553. Check out his blog, Welcome to Linderland, at www.thetandd.com.

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