CCC: Specialist Breakdown

<!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>DORCHESTER | </strong>The Carolinas Coaches Combines is not just for the skill positions on offense and defense, but the guys on special teams as well who boot it out of the end zone to set up their defense or kick it through the uprights to put points on the board for their offense.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>And this past Sunday at Woodland High School, there was a good pool of talent for coach Eugene Benton to work with. He's been a consistent face charged with running the specialists through their prescribed drills away from the primary action.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>But it's no less important.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>“It's always cool," Benton told PRZ. "You get to watch kids develop and it kind of gives you a sense of every program on Friday night. 'How'd my guy do?' Whether it be Darlington or Hartsville or South Florence or Rock Hill."</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>[player_tooltip player_id='1821199' first='Aiden' last='Thorn']</strong> (pictured) from Cane Bay walked away with MVP honors from Session 1, hitting six of seven of his field goal attempts with the longest being a 55-yard boot. He also boomed a punt for 61 yards and a kickoff of 68 yards. Benton told us Thorn caught the attention of Shrine Bowl coaches in attendance looking to make their evaluations for this year's game at the end of the 2026 season.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>As we mentioned on Sunday, <strong>Ted Rowe </strong>from American Leadership and <strong>Travis ​​Vattelana</strong> from Atlantic Collegiate walked away with MVP honors from Sessions 2 and 3.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>[player_tooltip player_id='1818310' first='Hayden' last='O'Rear']</strong> from Summerville had a 62-yard punt with a 3.85 hangtime. The other punts? They were punts of 56 and 58 yards with the shortest one being 32 yards.&nbsp;</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Benton had two long snappers in attendance: <strong>[player_tooltip player_id='1819652' first='John' last='Diliegro'] </strong>from Bishop England and <strong>[player_tooltip player_id='1817750' first='Brock' last='Yocum']</strong> from Wando.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>He had them snap it to a painted target (1 ft x 1 ft box), with the target resembling the punter, with eight snaps each. Diliergo was seven of eight on targets and less than eight-tenths of a second per snap. Yocum was also seven of eight on targets and around a time of a nine-tenths of a second. And the misses were only by a few inches and in a game-like situation, the punters would've easily caught the ball and got it off.  </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph -->