By Ken Jackson
Sports Writer

Barner Cooks will be looking to replace his defensive stopper next season.

The poor guy coaches two sports. And although it’s the same girl he has to replace over both sports, it’ll take at least three players to do so.

Maria Lopez played both basketball and flag football for three years. Cooks is the head girls basketball coach and theflag football defensive coordinator, under head coach Brian Lambert, at Osceola High School.

On the field, Lopez turned into the Kowgirls go-to player on both sides of the ball. While she scored seven touchdowns on offense, good numbers for just nine games, it was her defense that drove county and district coaches nuts.

Lopez, after intercepting 10 passes as a junior, picked off another 13 her senior year, essentially shutting down half of the field when she played in shallow coverage, or the entire field for deep routes as a free safety.

In crunch time, there was nobody better for the Kowgirls to rely on.

“When we needed a play made, I knew she’d make it,” Cooks said.

Lopez is the Osceola News-Gazette Flag Football Co-Player of the Year, and people outside the county took notice, too. She was named to the East roster, coached by Anthony Jones, the coach of state champion Dr. Phillips, of the inaugural Florida Athletic Coaches Association All-Star game.

She played games against the North and South teams and registered another interception.

“I had one pick, but I got my hands on three others,” she said. “It’s my habit to play deep, but Coach Jones told me to keep moving up. It was fun, I would have liked to have practiced with that team more.”

Lopez is one of a rare breed who prefers playing defense to the glamour of scoring the points on offense.

“I love playing defense, I’m hungrier on that side of the ball for whatever reason. I get that from playing basketball,” she said.

Lambert said that her speed enabled the team to change the defense to make it simpler for the rest of the players.

“She’s so fast we changed our defense because she can cover sideline to sideline,” he said. “She became a really special player, and we’re going to miss her, especially on defense.

“Opposing coaches said all the time that if a ball goes up for grabs near her, she always comes down with it. And on offense, she was our go-to receiver. People knew it, but it didn’t matter.”

Her team leadership was another factor of her game, something that doesn’t show up on stat sheets.

“Her best asset is her competitive nature. She wants to win so bad,” Lambert said. “Sometimes that hurt her, so we had to get her to focus to play the next play and that the previous one is over.”

She must’ve gotten the message just in time for the district tournament. Right after Dr. Phillips picked off a Kowgirls pass in the district semifinal, giving the Panthers a short field to score on, Lopez intercepted a pass of her own in the end zone to keep the game 7-6 at halftime.

Osceola would lose on the scoreboard, 13-7, but that play was a win for the pride of Lopez and her teammates.

“I loved playing against Dr. Phillips. We played them tougher than just about anybody else did,” she said. “It felt like we could compete, and they went on to win the state title.”