For Riverside quarterback Gideon Merhib, trust is the name of the game.
After former star 6-foot-4, 220-pound wide receiver Mikkel Skinner graduated from the Warriors last year, Merhib knew he was going to have to develop trust in different wideouts this season.
“That’s something we talked about a lot, trusting each other every single play,” said Merhib. “I’ve got to know where they’re going to be before they even get there, and that starts with communication between all of us.”
Against Boiling Springs last Friday night, that trust was never more vital.
Merhib led a 65-yard drive down the field with less than a minute on the clock and Riverside trailing 20-13. He and his Warriors got all the way down to the Bulldog 20, but with 10 seconds left, the clock was running, and Riverside had no timeouts.
With three seconds left, Merhib called for the snap.
He sent every receiver on a straight go route to the end zone, and he hurled a ball in the direction of senior Camilo Morrison near the front left pylon.
The 6-foot-3 senior made a diving catch for the game-tying score.
“Man, they’ve been trying to get me in a situation all year where I can make a play on a jump ball,” said Morrison. “I saw that ball go up in the air, and I knew what I had to do.”
“It’s back to that trust,” said Merhib. “I know [Camilo] can make a play when I need him to. He’s my biggest and tallest target, so I trusted him and threw up that prayer. And he made an incredible play.”
That trust — not just with Morrison, but with Merhib and all of Riverside’s receivers — has been growing long before the season began.
“That’s something we’ve been building since the summer,” said senior TE/WR Connor Sobolewski. “We’ve worked a lot on being reliable and helping Gideon know he can trust us and spread the ball around."
The result? A sort of “all hands on deck” mentality within the Riverside receiving room. Up and down the lineup, everyone contributes.
“When you lose a guy like Mikkel [Skinner], he’s a monster out there that would catch almost every ball no matter what,” said Sobolewski. “Gideon has done a great job getting everyone involved now that he’s graduated.”
In the win over Boiling Springs, Merhib spread the wealth among all his options. Not one receiver finished with over 100 receiving yards, but every single one of them had at least 20.
Sobolewski led in total yards with 82 on three receptions. Morrison added 72 yards on five receptions to go along with his buzzer-beating touchdown.
Sophomore Peyton “Payday” Stevenson caught six passes for 54 yards, while running back Keyon Knowles had 38 yards on seven receptions. Sophomore Cooper Adams even got in on the action with 22 yards on a clutch catch on the final drive in regulation.
“We started working with Gideon early in the spring on learning how we each play,” said Stevenson. “Now, when we get onto the field, it’s like he already knows what spot we need to be in, and that’s where he puts the ball.”
For Riverside offensive coordinator Thomas Wilkes, play designs and schemes look a little different when there’s not the 6-foot-4 Skinner in his back pocket to pluck every pass out of thin air.
Senior Jaiden "Speedy" Taylor - Riverside's second-leading receiver last year - has contributed plenty this season when healthy, but he's missed some games nursing injuries.
Wilkes has found a way to make it all work.
“Last year, we knew coming into every game that we had the best player on the field pretty much every night,” Wilkes said of Skinner. “He could take over the game at any point. This year, we’ve been a lot more calculated with our approach and with how we distribute the ball. It’s about finding different ways to exploit holes in the defense with each of the guys we have catching the ball.”
“Each of our receivers knows exactly what their role is in our offense,” said Riverside head coach Matt Rochester. “It’s wide receivers by committee, which is different than what we’ve had the past few years.”
The Warriors would go on to take down the Boiling Springs 27-20 in overtime on Friday, the program’s first win over a Spartanburg County team since 2014 — only the second in the team’s history.
They’ll look to make it two in a row this week as Riverside travels to face Spartanburg in the final game of the regular season.
It will certainly take all hands on deck.
“We’ve just got to keep having fun as a group and keep flying around,” said Merhib. “If we play like the team we’ve been recently, I think we can do it.
“We want to keep shocking some people.”
RIVERSIDE 2025 RECEIVING STATS
Peyton "Payday" Stevenson - 46 receptions, 542 yards, 6 TDs
Camilo Morrison - 24 receptions, 367 yards, 3 TDs
Jaiden "Speedy" Taylor - 26 receptions, 296 yards, 4 TDs
Keyon Knowles - 30 receptions, 292 yards
Somad Eaddy - 13 receptions, 284 yards, TD
Connor Sobolewski - 5 receptions, 120 yards TD
Cooper Adams - 7 receptions, 93 yards, 2 TDs
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