By Ken Jackson
Sports Writer

The Liberty Chargers woke up Saturday morning with a piece of the 7A District 6 lead after a 26-21 win Friday over Gateway.

Coach Dave Benson spoke of feeling very lucky to be there.

“We did a lot of things to lose the game and still won,” he said. “I might have outcoached myself a little, I told the coaching staff that it was on me.”

The team looks to homecoming night Friday for it’s first consecutive wins in two years against Freedom at 7:30 p.m.

Friday, a Chargers team that had lost fourth-quarter leads in two games, saw a 26-14 edge against the Panthers slipping away until Donald Sims-Sylvester intercepted a pass at the Liberty 2-yard line with 1:18 left.

Sims-Sylvester said the guys on defense were imploring each other to make a big play as the Panthers drove down the field, knowing that a district loss would be a dagger to their dreams.

“We knew we needed it, that if we lost there’d be no playoffs.” he said. “I was kind of late on the play, I thought it was a run ,then I saw a guy in the flat in the corner of my eye. Then I just ran and jumped.”

Gateway (3-3, 1-1 in 7A-6) did enough good things on defense to have the ball late with a chance to win the game because of missed opportunities by Liberty (2-3, 2-0).

“We couldn’t score on a fourth-and-1, and we dropped a TD pass in the end zone. That’s 14 points, add them and we’re up around 40,” Benson said. “We definitely missed some opportunities that could have helped us.”

The Chargers took a 10-7 lead after Cruz Madero recovered a fumble and took it to the Gateway 7, then Giomani Davis scored two plays later from the 2.

The Panthers scored 35 seconds before halftime to take a 14-13 lead at the break, but the third quarter was all Liberty. It mounted two touchdown drives that fullback Bobby Jones ended with runs of 7 and 2 yards, the later putting Liberty up 26-14 with 2:54 left.

But Gateway scored in the fourth quarter, then after the teams traded punts, the Panthers got the ball at their own 39 with 5:46 left in the game and moved methodically into the red zone, then to the 2-yard line, before Sims-Sylvester came to the rescue.

“Donald had a big week in practice. As a coach, you hope that play might be the spark,” Benson said. “I hope that’s the case because we have two of Central Florida’s best teams coming in in the next three weeks.”

Freedom (5-1) is a non-district opponent before the Chargers play three 7A-6 games (at St. Cloud, Osceola, Celebration) that will dictate their playoff fate.

The team lost its leading rusher, Jalen Benn, for the season with a knee injury.

“It’s important to win. We haven’t lost a homecoming game in four years,” Benson said.