Plumbers in Wando, SC

The junior quarterback had no such jitters this year.

Chalmers threw for 147 yards and two touchdowns and running back Stephen Segars rushed for 112 yards and added two more TDs as Lucy Beckham routed Wando, 43-0, on Aug. 25 before a standing-room-only crowd at District 2 Stadium.

The Bengals, who are playing in just their second varsity season, have beaten Wando both times the schools have faced each other. Lucy Beckham edged the Warriors, 8-6, a season ago in the first varsity matchup between the two schools.

Unlike the game last season, which featured two stingy defenses and little offense, the Class AAAA Bengals moved the ball at will against the AAAAA Warriors, scoring on five straight offensive possession in the first half.

“I didn’t do this all by myself, I had a lot of help from all of my teammates,” said Chalmers, who completed 13 of 19 passes on the night. “They’ve put in so much work in the offseason and we just get on the field and did the things that we’ve been practicing for the past four months.

“I think the final score shows that Beckham is here and we can play. We’ve worked so hard and it’s great to see it pay off with this kind of result.”

As good as the Bengals offense was, the defense was even better. The Bengals, under former The Citadel defensive coordinator Tony Grantham, limited the Warriors to less than 100 yards of total offense and only 26 rushing yards.

Sports

“We are a relentless defense,” said Lucy Beckham coach Jamel Smith, who used to be the defensive coordinator Wando. “We always preach finish plays, finish tackles, don’t assume that someone else is going to make that tackle. We swarm to the football and it showed tonight. They kids have bought into what we are doing.”

Keeping with tradition that started last year, the losing principal had to kiss “Billy the Goat” at midfield after the game was over.

Wando principal Chas Coker did the honors Friday night.

“My boss ain’t kissing no goat tonight,” Smith said with a chuckle.

Lucy Beckham grabbed momentum when the Bengals marched 80 yards in 11 plays to take an 8-0 lead late in the first quarter.

Chalmers finished off the drive when he hit tight end Bryce Rothwell in the end zone for a TD with 2:06 to play in the opening quarter.

Lucy Beckham running back Charles Byrd pushed the Bengals’ lead to 15-0 when he capped a 6-play, 65-yard drive with an 11-yard TD run with 10:10 to play before halftime.

Chalmers threw a 27-yard strike to Mason Ombres that took the ball down to the 11-yard line to set up Byrd’s TD run.

After a short punt, it took Lucy Beckham just two plays to go ahead by three touchdowns. Segars gave the Bengals a 22-0 lead with a 1-yard TD run with 7:33 to play before halftime.

Chalmers threw his second TD pass of the first half, connecting on a 7-yard TD to Henry Brosey to give the Bengals a 29-0 lead with 5:38 left before halftime.

Segars scored for the second time on the Bengals first play from scrimmage to start the second half. After a bad snap on a punt, the Bengals recovered the ball at the Wando 3.

Segars went around the right side untouched into the end zone to give Lucy Beckham a 36-0 lead with 10 minutes to play.

Robert Myers’ 23-yard TD run gave the Bengals a 43-0 lead with 3:14 left in the third quarter.

Former Wando High School coach Jimmy Noonan brought his dad in to help coach the Warriors' running backs in 2014, and the old man couldn't stop raving about this one young player.

"He'd always talk about Kevin Brown, Kevin Brown, Kevin Brown," said Jimmy Noonan, now the coach at Georgetown High School. "He said, 'The kid has something special to him.'

"He was a little small, just an undersized kid at that time. But he just had an innate desire to be successful in the sport."

That desire, along with some speed and skill, has carried the 5-9, 205-pound Brown a long way since he played middle school football for Moultrie and Laing in Mount Pleasant.

He was named an FCS All-American this season to cap off a stellar career at Incarnate Word, a private school of about 9,300 students in San Antonio, Texas. The Cardinals went 10-3 this season, won the Southland Conference title and advanced to the second round of the FCS playoffs.

A lot of that success was due to the play of Brown, who rushed for 956 yards and 12 touchdowns this season. In six games last spring, he averaged an NCAA-best 10.5 yards per carry, and finished a three-year career with 2,451 yards and 20 TDs in 31 games, averaging a remarkable 6.9 yards per rush.

He can also catch the ball, with 31 receptions for 312 yards and two TDs last season.

Prep Zone

"Not enough can be said about what Kevin Brown brings to the table on and off the field," former Incarnate Word coach Eric Morris said last spring. "He is a phenomenal person, player and teammate.

"He is a threat to take the ball to the house anytime he touches the ball whether it is a handoff or a catch. I'm so proud of the way Kevin comes to work every day."

That work ethic dates back to at least Brown's years at Wando, where he played on teams with future South Carolina Gamecocks in quarterback Bailey Hart and receiver OrTre Smith.

"He was always willing to put in whatever time and work was necessary," said Jimmy Noonan. "He has all of those intangibles, and is special with the football in his hands.

"His senior year, he was everything to us offensively. And honestly, his effectiveness in the backfield enabled us to distribute the football to a young receiver named OrTre Smith. That's one reason OrTre was so successful, is that folks could not double up on him because of what we had coming out of our backfield."

Brown ran for almost 1,800 yards and 20 touchdowns his senior season, averaging 8.9 yards per carry. Noonan said some questioned why he took Brown to the Shrine Bowl that season, but Brown led all running backs in rushing yardage in the all-star game that features top seniors from North and South Carolina.

When it came to college recruiting, Brown admits he did not have the grades at the time to sign with a Division I program. He went instead to Highland Community College in Kansas.

"It was my grades," he said. "I didn't understand how they looked at grades, and that kind of messed me up when it was time for recruiting."

But Brown earned his degree from Highland and played well enough — with 857 rushing yards and 10 TDs in his second season — to earn an offer from Incarnate Word.

"There were some ups and downs," he said. "It was definitely a struggle. JUCO is a different breed, especially where I was at. Highland is in the middle of nowhere — 30 minutes to the nearest city, 15 minutes to the nearest McDonald's and Walmart.

"There's nothing but cattle and cornfields, and it's cold. But the players and people there made it fun."

At Incarnate Word, Brown proved himself as one of the top running backs in FCS. But he says he's not done.

In December, he announced on Twitter that he was declaring himself eligible for the NFL Draft.

"I wouldn't be the man I am today without hurdling through every challenge presented to me and learning every day I stepped on the field," he said.

Learn where South Carolina’s three top inshore species live and catch them all

“You’re gonna have to horse him out of there. Don’t give him any slack,” said Capt. Addison Rupert of Charleston’s Lowcountry Outdoor Adventures, coaching a client who was hooked up with a bull redfish around some wooden structure in the Wando River. A few minutes later, Rupert hoisted the 42-inch redfish aboard, then asked his client if she was ready to go for the speckled trout and flounder. They were after an “inshore slam.”

Rupert said the Wando is one of many places in the Lowcountry where a fisherman has a chance to catch a slam this month: redfish, speckled trout and flounder.

“Redfish love to hang out along grass lines and in deep holes near wooden structures. Speckled trout like moving water, especially areas with cross currents. Flounder prefer smooth sandy or muddy bottom with structure nearby,” he said. “The Wando has all of these, and it has them all close together.”

A moving tide is preferable for all three species, said Rupert, but he said flounder bite on a slack tide more readily than redfish or trout, so he concentrates on those two species when the tide is moving, then targets flounder at ebb tide.

This month, redfish are all over the Lowcountry, and they are feeding aggressively. Rupert targets them with live or cut bait.

“I know I’ll find some redfish near wooden structures, especially ones that are near deep holes, and the Wando is full of such structures,” said Rupert, who fishes with live mud minnows on jigheads, and with cut blue crabs. With a quarter of a crab threaded onto a 3/0 circle hook at the end of a Carolina rig, Rupert anchors down or ties up within casting distance of docks or old bridge pilings. He fan-casts a spread of several rods — some with blue crab and some with mud minnows — then waits for a bite.

If nothing bites in 15 or 20 minutes, Rupert moves, but sometimes it’s a very subtle move.

“Sometimes I’ll just move a few feet so I can reach another side of whatever structure I’m fishing. Other times, I’ll run downriver to another piece of structure,” he said.

When it’s time for trout, Rupert focuses on moving water. Points on the main river often feature different currents that collide, and Rupert targets them with popping corks and mud minnows. He casts into one current, lets the current carry the cork into the other, then reels the rig back in, making it pop all the way back, often drawing strikes from trout.

When using popping corks, Rupert likes to have an 18-inch leader under the cork; he said many anglers are too shy when it comes to popping the rigs.

“I want it moving the whole time. I let it settle, then pop it across the water. The trout come to check out the noise, see the bait, then hopefully bite it,” he said.

Flounder, Rupert said, are the most challenging of the three inshore slam species.

“They are more particular about where they hang out, and they are finicky biters compared to redfish and trout, especially this month when those two species are pretty aggressive,” he said.

But the Wando has plenty of spots where flounder like to gather, said Rupert, who looks for shallow water with a smooth bottom. A black, muddy bottom is good, but a white sandy one is just as good. He uses a Carolina rig with a 12- to 18-inch leader and a mud minnow for bait. He sticks with 12- to 15-pound test line and suggests casting the minnow out, then slowly working it back toward the boat. He cautions anglers not to set the hook too quickly.

“If they run away with it, then you need to set the hook right away, but if you just feel a slight tick, just be patient and let the fish take it in. Flounder don’t bite like other fish; they take longer to work the bait into their mouths,” Rupert said.

In the Wando, Rupert said it’s easy to find flounder spots. Some are between the docks of riverfront homes. Look for areas that have very gentle slopes from shore to deeper water. At low tide, some of this water is inches deep, even 30 or 40 feet from the shore. It’s flat and sandy, a welcome habitat for flounder. He finds other flounder spots with flat, muddy bottoms where undeveloped land meets the river, mostly along the left bank of the river heading upstream from Remley’s Point.

Rupert said other inshore slam hot spots this month include creeks around the Isle of Palms Marina and the grass-lined banks in the harbor out of Shem Creek’s public boat ramp.

Another Charleston-area guide, Capt. Amy Little of Fine Lines Charters, likes pursuing the inshore slam, often out of the Breach Inlet boat ramp on Isle of Palms. Many of her favorite redfish and trout holes are within sight of the ramp and include some of the old wooden pilings near private docks. She likes to tie up or anchor within casting distance of these structures, then uses corks to suspend her bait above the bottom. She also likes to target grass lines, especially ones with shell banks nearby.

“When I see a grass line near a shell bank, then notice a jut in the grass line that creates a hole or opening in the grass, I will give that area special attention. I expect to catch redfish tight to the grass there, and trout are usually hanging out just off the grass, between the grass and shell bank,” Little said.

When fishing these shell banks, Little almost exclusively uses corks, suspending her bait with 12- to 15-inch leaders.

“You want to keep your hooks off those shell banks to keep from getting hooked on the shells. The trout sometimes bite very lightly too, so the cork helps detect bites,” said Little, who doesn’t impart a lot of action into the popping corks when her bait — usually live mud minnows or live shrimp — is fresh. “Once the bait gets a little sluggish, I’ll start popping it some, but I usually let the bait do its own thing.”

Aside from areas around Breach Inlet, Little said the waters around the Pitt Street bridge are productive for the inshore slam.

“The bull redfish hang out along the pilings of the bridge, and the grass lines all around the bridge are good spots for redfish and trout,” she said. “Water flows under the bridge to the main waterway, and the bottom there is a combination of shell banks and smooth sand. Anchoring in one spot can be productive for all three inshore slam species.”

Castle Pinckney is another productive spot for Little. Letting her cork float along with the tide on the outskirts of the island is a good tactic for trout, but she also catches flounder on the bottom between the island and a nearby cluster of pilings. She said flatfish love hugging the bottom close to the rocks that line the island, looking for an easy meal to ambush.

“They like a flat bottom, but they like it even better if it’s near some sort of change in structure like rock piles or even shell banks,” she said.

Aside from live mud minnows, Little likes using artificial lures for redfish and flounder, especially soft plastics like Vudu Shrimp.

“These baits are really good. They work well and they stand up to abuse. You can catch dozens of redfish and trout on one of these without them tearing up,” said Little.

Like Rupert, Little prefers a moving tide for this type of fishing,and said the incoming is almost always best.

“At low tide, these fish are ready to move into the areas they haven’t had access to in several hours. They know food is waiting for them, and once the tide starts rising, these fish will come in and hit the shell banks, grass lines, and dock pilings to look for food that is only available on the incoming or high tide,” she said.

DESTINATION INFORMATION

HOW TO GET THERE/WHEN TO GO — The Charleston area is blessed with dozens of public boat ramps that allow great access to productive waters like the Wando River. The Remley Point ramp is on the Cooper River at the foot of the US 17 bridge in Mount Pleasant; it is close to the mouth of the Wando River. The Paradise Island landing is on CR 1453 off US 17 on the Wando. The Breech Inlet ramp is a pay ramp at Isle of Palms Marina. June is a great month to target an inshore slam because flounder and trout have arrived, and along with redfish, they are very active before water temperatures warm to true summer levels.

TACKLE/TECHNIQUES — Medium-action spinning or baitcasting tackle will get the job done on trout, reds and flounder. Carolina rigs are most-often used when targeting flounder using live bait. For trout, a live bait suspended under a popping cork can do the trick. Reds will also hit live bait on a jighead or under a cork, or crab chunks on a Carolina rig.

GUIDES/FISHING INFO — Capt. Addison Rupert, Lowcountry Outdoor Adventures, 843-557-3476, www.lowcountryoutdooradventures.com; Capt. Amy Little, Fine Lines Charters, 843-345-1310, www.finelinescharters.com; Haddrell’s Point Tackle, Mount Pleasant, 843-881-3644; Charleston Angler, Mount Pleasant, 843-884-2095; Isle of Palms Marina, Isle of Palms, 843-886-0209; Atlantic Game & Tackle, Mount Pleasant, 843-881-6900; Henry’s Sporting Goods, Mount Pleasant, 843-881-0465. See also Guides & Charters in Classifieds.

ACCOMMODATIONS — Hampton Inn & Suites, Mount Pleasant, 843-856-3900; Holiday Inn, Mount Pleasant, 843-884-6000; Seaside Inn, Isle of Palms, 888-999-6516; Charleston Harbor Resort and Marina, Mount Pleasant, 888-856-0028; Shem Creek Inn, Mount Pleasant, 843-881-1000.

MAPS — Capt. Segull’s Nautical Charts, 888-473-4855, www.captainsegullcharts.com; Sealake Fishing; Guides, 800-411-0185, www.thegoodspots.com; Maps Unique, 910-458-9923, www.mapsunique.com.

With this year’s opening of the first U.S. greenfield container terminal in more than a decade plus significant modernization of its venerable Wando Welch Terminal, the South Carolina Ports Authority’s Port of Charleston is exceptionally positioned to fluidly move burgeoning volumes on and off megacontainerships.

“As the only port in the country with new terminal capacity, SC Ports has the ability to handle the growing cargo volumes and rising retail imports coming through the Port of Charleston,” James I. “Jim” Newsome III, president and chief executive officer of the South Carolina authority, told AJOT.

In his dozen years at the SC Ports helm, Newsome, a former Hapag-Lloyd (America) Inc. president, has spearheaded delivery of what he termed “just-in-the-nick-of-time infrastructure,” including through an ambitious six-year, $2 billion initiative that augurs to boost the Port of Charleston’s total annual throughput capacity to more than 4.8 million 20-foot-equivalent units.

The Port of Charleston’s increased big-ship-handling capability is coming at a propitious time, amidst a pandemic-spurred increase in U.S. consumer spending and concomitant import boom and heightened distribution hub capacity demand.

“Amid ongoing supply chain challenges, SC Ports’ capacity, berth availability and efficient operations are more important than ever,” Newsome said.

Operations were launched in March at the first phase of Hugh K. Leatherman Terminal, built on a former U.S. Navy base site in North Charleston, where the port permitting process began back in 2003. The initial Leatherman phase is adding 700,000 TEUs of yearly capacity at the Port of Charleston. At full build-out, a three-berth Leatherman facility is to offer 2.4 million TEUs of annual throughput capability.

A similar 2.4 million TEUs of yearly capacity is to be provided by the modernized Wando Welch Terminal, a four-decades-old facility that, in this latest $500 million renovation, is seeing its contingent of ship-to-shore cranes increase to 15 units with 155 feet of lift height, augmented by 65 rubber-tired gantries and a stronger wharf. The last two of those cranes are slated to be operational by early 2022. The Wando Welch Terminal can simultaneously handle as many as four megacontainerships, each with a capacity of 14,000 or more TEUs.

Furthermore, the nearly $600 million Charleston Harbor Deepening Project, funded by state and federal dollars, is on track to achieve a 52-foot depth in 2022, to give Charleston the deepest harbor on the U.S. East Coast, capable of accommodating the biggest of boxships at any time under any tidal conditions.

“All of this puts us in a very unique situation to be able to grow without congestion,” Newsome said. “We have no congestion right now. The port works very reliably, and we are able to get ships in and out fast.”

SC Ports already has been handling record volumes. In the first eight months of calendar 2021, the Port of Charleston handled 1,814,602 TEUs, putting it on pace to far exceed the 2,309,995 TEUs moved in 2020 and also surpass the calendar-year record 2,436,184 TEUs handled in 2019.

With such a dramatic rise in activity, SC Ports also is enhancing its intermodal capabilities for getting cargo to and from inland destinations.

Supported in part by a $25 million U.S. Department of Transportation grant, expansion is under way at SC Ports’ Inland Port Greer, the first phase of which opened just off Interstate 85 in Upstate South Carolina in 2013, with BMW Manufacturing Co. as its launch customer. The Greer facility extends the Port of Charleston’s reach 212 miles inland via Norfolk Southern rail, with 94 million consumers reachable within a one-day truck trip from the inland terminal.

Meanwhile, SC Ports is developing the Navy Base Intermodal Facility, a cargo yard near Leatherman Terminal that is to be served by both CSX and Norfolk Southern. That facility, targeted for completion within three years, is part of a $500 million-plus project that also encompasses an inner harbor container-on-barge operation for moving boxes between Wando Welch Terminal and Hugh K. Leatherman Terminal.

At the same time, with the continuing boom in retail imports, SC Ports is actively working with retailers to find transload and warehouse capacity to expedite peak-season volumes. SC Ports operates a transload facility at Wando Welch Terminal, handling cargo for e-commerce business of megaretailers.

A 3-million-square-foot Walmart import distribution center is on schedule to open in January on port-owned land in Ridgeville, South Carolina, about 35 miles northwestward up Interstate 26 from the Leatherman terminal.

South Carolina Ports is marking the completion of its years-long infrastructure project as its fifteenth and final ship-to-shore crane is now operational at the Port of Charleston’s Wando Welch Terminal.

The fifteen new ship-to-shore cranes have 155 feet of lift height and the ability to reach out over 22 containers to work the biggest ships calling the U.S. East Coast. The cranes will allow for three 14,000-TEU vessels to be worked simultaneously—five cranes for each of the three berths. The first two neo-Panamax ship-to-shore cranes arrived at the Wando Welch Terminal in 2018.

The cranes are a key part of SC Ports’ $500 million investment to modernize Wando Welch Terminal. The multi-year project added capacity and boosted operations with new container-handling equipment, a modernized container yard and refrigerated cargo yard, improved traffic patterns and IT systems, a strengthened wharf, and an on-terminal transload facility for large retailers.

“It is truly remarkable to see the final crane of our new fleet moved into place on the Wando Welch Terminal wharf,” said SC Ports President and CEO Barbara Melvin, who took the helm in July. “This is the culmination of years of effort, planning and coordination by our team and project partners. Our modern equipment provides smarter operations and more fluidity for the supply chain.”

SC Ports handled 216,097 TEUs and 119,872 pier containers at Wando Welch Terminal, North Charleston Terminal and Leatherman Terminal in July. This marked an improvement from the 196,225 TEUs it handled the previous month as delays at the Port of Savannah led some operators to omit Charleston, opting to instead to unload Charleston-bound containers in Savannah to make up time, according to industry expert John McCown.

SC Ports last month reported a record fiscal year in 2022 (its fiscal year runs July to June), with 2.85 million TEUs handled. For pier containers, which account for boxes of any size, SC Ports moved 1.58 million containers during the year. Overall, SC Ports saw a 12% uptick in cargo, with more than 164,000 additional containers moving through the Port of Charleston than the year prior thanks to sustained consumer demand. Imports were up 22% year-over-year.

To maintain cargo fluidity at terminals, SC Ports has extended Sunday gate hours for motor carriers through at least peak season, given berth priority to vessels taking out more cargo, improved rail dray dwell times to around 36 hours, hired more than 150 people in operations to handle the influx of cargo, and launched a port-owned and port-operated chassis pool.

These efforts have helped to keep cargo moving. There have been no vessels waiting since early May, though supply chain challenges continue along the East Coast, according to SC Ports.

“We are continuing to be adaptive and responsive to ensure fluidity for our customers and cargo owners,” Melvin said.