Dutch Fork dynasty: Silver Foxes outlast Dorman to win fourth straight Class 5A title
As kids growing up, Ty Olenchuk and Jalin Hyatt dreamed of a moment like the one Saturday afternoon at Williams-Brice Stadium.
The two Dutch Fork seniors have been friends since elementary school and combined for one of the most dramatic plays in school history. Olenchuk, the Silver Foxes blonde-haired quarterback, found Hyatt in the left corner of the end zone for a 10-yard touchdown to give Dutch Fork a 34-31 win over Dorman in the Class 5A championship.
“Not just a touchdown but look to who it was to?” Olenchuk said of the final play. “Jalin Hyatt helped me the whole way. He is an incredible wide receiver and best I could ever ask for.”
“He’s like my brother,” Hyatt said of Olenchuk. “We had a lot of ups and downs in this game, had adversity. But we stuck with it and came out with a win.”
It’s Dutch Fork’s fourth consecutive state title and fifth in 10 years under Tom Knotts, who has won 12 championships combined in North and South Carolina. Dutch Fork is the seventh team in state history to win four titles in a row with Abbeville the last to do it from 2015-18. Five of the seven teams to win four in a row have come since 2002.
“I don’t know many teams around the country that could say they won four state championships (in a row),” Dutch Fork coach Tom Knotts said. “It just shows how hard they work. … Just a special, special class.”
Olenchuk and Hyatt been two of the cornerstones of this run title run and were ball boys for Dutch Fork when Knotts arrived 10 years ago. The two leave Dutch Fork as the school’s all-time leading passer and receiver and part of a senior class that went 55-1-1 in their careers and have a 40-game unbeaten streak.
The duo connected on numerous big plays but none with the game on the line like Saturday.
After Dorman kicked a field goal on its first possession of overtime, Knotts said the plan was to give Hyatt four cracks at the ball. Olenchuk looked Hyatt’s way but threw incomplete to Jon Hall on the first play. On the next play, he found Hyatt, a Tennessee commit who had Vols coach Jeremy Pruitt and assistant coaches there on the sidelines, for the win.
“Very special,” Hyatt said. “They (Tennessee coaches) will be coming to my house later. Hopefully, my mom will cook a good dinner. Tennessee believed in me first and that is why I committed there. But right now it is all about the team and winning a state championship.”
“That never gets old,” Knotts said of the Olenchuk-Hyatt combo. “It was just a fade. They came up and pressed. I don’t recommend that against Jalin Hyatt.”
Olenchuk finished 15-of-30 passing for 236 yards and four touchdowns. He finishes his career with 9,009 yards passing and 102 touchdowns. Hyatt had seven catches for 165 yards and three TDs and finished his career with 180 receptions and 57 touchdowns.
Dutch Fork jumped on top on the game’s first play as Olenchuk hit Hyatt on a pass over the middle that went for 80 yards, 13 seconds in the game. The Silver Foxes made it 14-0 on the next possession on Olenchuk’s 7-yard pass to Hyatt.
Dorman answered with back-to-back scoring drives, the last coming on quarterback Hayden Lee’s 13-yard run to tie the score at 14 with five minutes left in the second quarter.
The Cavs did a great job keeping the Dutch Fork offense off the field with long sustained drives. Dorman had the ball almost 27 more minutes then the Silver Foxes.
Lee put Dorman up 28-21 with a 16-yard pass to Jayvon Cohen with 2:09 left in the third. But Dutch Fork’s defense rose to the challenge and kept the team in it after being on the field for much of the game. The Silver Foxes held Dorman to just 30 yards in the fourth quarter.
Dutch Fork tied it at 28 with its own long drive. The Silver Foxes went 95 yards on 12 plays with Jon Hall running it in from 18 yards out with 4:18 left. Hall, a senior, finished with 221 all-purpose yards and two touchdowns.
How they scored
DF 14 0 7 7 6 — 34
D 7 7 14 0 3 — 31
First Quarter
DF — Hyatt 80 pass from Olenchuk (Newboult kick), 11:43
DF — Hyatt 7 pass from Olenchuk (Newboult kick), 6:25
D — Storch 11 pass from Lee (Khan kick), 2:07
Second Quarter
D — Lee 13 run (Khan kick), 5:00
Third Quarter
D — Norman 53 pass from Lee (Khan kick), 10:03
DF — Hall 7 pass from Olenchuk (Newboult kick), 7:21
D — Cohen 16 pass from Lee (Kahn kick), 2:09
Fourth Quarter
DF — Hall 18 run (Newboult kick), 4:16
Overtime
D — Kahn 25 FG
DF — Hyatt 10 pass from Olenchuk
Individual stats
RUSHING: DF: Jon Hall 15-189; Ty Olenchuk 4-22. D: Rashad Durrah 11-71; Hayden Lee 13-26; Chance Black 13-17.
PASSING: DF:Ty Olenchuk 15-30-2-236. D: Hayden Lee 20-29-0-310.
RECEIVING: Dutch Fork HS-Jalin Hyatt 7-165; Jon Hall 4-32; Mason Wilkinson 1-15; Jayden Sweetenburg 1-14; Daniel German 1-11; Elijah Spencer 1-minus 1. D: Jayvon Cohen 8-149; Chance Black 5-54; Kendall Norman 3-78; Nathan Storch 2-20; Rashad Durrah 1-6; Dillon Droze 1-3
This story was originally published December 7, 2019 at 2:59 PM.
