Spring Valley’s Quincy Hill finding his footing at quarterback

Spring Valley coach Robin Bacon said it takes time for a quarterback to get comfortable running the Vikings’ flexbone offense, and Quincy Hill seems to be hitting his stride.

A week after setting a career high in passing yards, the Spring Valley junior quarterback rushed for a career-best 258 yards and a touchdown to earn The State’s Offensive Player of Week honors, following the Vikings’ 34-28 win over Lexington.

Batesburg-Leesburg’s Zhadrian Burgess earned Defensive Player of the Week honors.

“His confidence is getting better every week,” Bacon said. “The biggest thing with the flexbone, it takes about four or five games for the game to slow down for the quarterback. Things are happening so fast and they are getting different looks that they are going to get confused. It slows down and they understand about reading the option.”

Bacon said Hill has come a long way and is diligent with his film study in his first year as starting quarterback in place of Ryan Lee, who’s at Coastal Carolina. He’s second among Midlands quarterbacks in rushing with 429 yards, and has thrown for 536.

“We are passing it a little more this year, but I like running it, too. It gives me more options,” Hill said.

Against Sumter on Sept. 9, Hill threw for 289 yards in the loss to the Gamecocks. But Bacon knew Hill would have to use his legs against Lexington, as the Wildcats would try to shut down running backs Terrell Jackson and Tate I’auolauo.

Hill got off to a strong start, scampering 81 yards for a TD on the Vikings’ first possession. He added a couple big runs in the second half as Spring Valley won its region opener.

“We knew Lexington they would have good cornerbacks and safety and they were good in the secondary, so we would have to run it,” Hill said. “The line did a great job and my center was running down the field ahead of me, leading me.”

“Biggest thing is people know we’ve got good running backs – we got four good ones. Lot of times teams want to shut down fullback or tailback and make quarterbacks beat them,” Bacon said. “And we knew this was going to be Quincy’s game to have a big game running the ball. We told him we were going to run the ball and not throw it much, and he did a great job.”

This story was originally published September 20, 2016 at 8:04 PM.