By Rick Pedone
Sports Editor

St. Cloud and Osceola wrapped up their spring football seasons Friday at different locations, but with similar results.

St. Cloud went to Olympia, where it fell to a high-powered Titans passing attack, 38-14.

Osceola traveled to Davenport Ridge Community and lost in the last minute of the game, 20-14.

St. Cloud Coach Mark Jackson said his team was victimized by big plays, but at the same time the Bulldogs showed a little firepower of their own as quarterback Phillip Steinmetz threw for 190 yards and  a touchdown to Cole Harvey. Nate Soriano hit Ian McKenzie for another Bulldog touchdown.

“We were a little weak in the secondary and they were able to exploit that,” Jackson said. “But, as bad as we looked in the first half, we did a pretty good job of shutting them down in the second half.”

Jackson said the Bulldogs offensive line, which started three rising freshmen, did an adequate job of pass protection, but that St. Cloud’s running game never developed.

“I thought going in that we’d be able to move on the ground, but that Phillip would get sacked quite a bit, but it ended up being the opposite,” Jackson said. “We didn’t do a bad job. What we need to do now is to get in the weight room over the summer and get stronger.”

Playing a Titans team that has five D-1 recruits starting for the defense didn’t make the Bulldogs’ job easy, Jackson said.

“Their big tackle, who goes like 285 pounds, who committed to Penn State before the game, is lining up against our freshman center,” Jackson said. “They have kids going to Alabama and South Florida. There were about 15 scouts there.”

St. Cloud also squandered several scoring opportunities, Jackson said.

“We had a nice drive in the first quarter and got down to their 10, then had a turnover,” he said. “Twice we got to their 10 and didn’t score, and we got to their 30 a couple of other times and didn’t get in. So, I was excited that we were moving the ball consistently, we just had some breakdowns that set us back.”

The defense, which switched to a four-man front this spring under new defensive coordinator Bill Buldini, should be better for the regular season, Jackson said.

“We knew we had a couple of weak areas that we needed to work on,” Jackson said.

The offense should get plenty of work this summer at 7-on-7 tournaments,” Jackson said.

“We’re going to tournaments at UCF, South Florida, Florida, Florida Atlantic and a big one at Disney,” Jackson said. “We’re going to play in the Orange County league with Olympia, Dr. Phillips and a lot of those big schools up there.”

Jackson said that freshman Jordan Reus displayed good hands at the spring game, and that the 7-on-7 tournaments should help him improve.

“He made a couple of great catches where he had to reach behind him,” Jackson said. “I came out of this pretty excited. We did some good things and I can see us getting a lot better over the summer.”

Osceola’s game Friday was delayed 90 minutes because of thunderstorms.

The Kowboys fell behind, 14-0, in the first period after a pair of long TD runs by Bolts running back Karlos Williams.

Osceola came back through the air as quarterback Keiron Williams found Terrance Tatume for TD passes of 7 and 35 yards to tie the score at the half.

Neither team scored in the third quarter, and the Kowboys had a chance to win late in the fourth quarter when Coach Doug Nichols sent the field goal team on at the Lake Region 20, then changed his mind.

“I called timeout and pulled them off, because it was the JV quarter and I didn’t want to put our varsity PAT team out there,” Nichols said.

The Bolts won with 46 seconds left after Mark Hall ran 2 yards for the winning TD after OHS turned it over at its 17.

Both teams substituted in the fourth quarter.

Nichols said once the team got over its first-quarter butterflies, it played well.

“Keiron did a good job, he threw a few good passes and managed the game. Terrance Tatume is a great receiver, he looks like Spider-Man out there when he gets the ball, and our offensive line did a great job. They may have been the highlight of the night,” Nichols said. “We’re no where near where we need to be, but we did a pretty good job.”

In other spring games involving county teams, Harmony lost at Daytona Sea-breeze, 38-14, Thursday as  Austin Ocasio and Christian Acevedo scored.

Celebration beat Poinciana, 37-6, May 21, and Gateway lost at Lake Nona, 35-7, May 20.

Fall practice begins Aug. 9.

Kickoff Classics are scheduled for Aug. 27, with the regular season openers set Sept. 3.