Hurricane threat forces officials to reschedule games

By Rick Pedone
Sports Editor

Several Osceola County football teams didn’t have to wait as long as they thought they would to begin the season.

Hurricane Irene, expected to pass off the east coast as a strong storm today, caused four local schools to move their Kickoff Classics from Friday to today and Wednesday.

Osceola will host Freedom today at 7:30 p.m. and Gateway plays host to Port Orange Atlantic, also at 7:30 p.m.

Both games originally were set for Friday.

Two more games were played Wednesday: Liberty at Satellite (Brevard County moved all its games to Wednesday) and Poinciana’s four-team jamboree.

St. Cloud and Harmony still are scheduled to play Friday. St. Cloud visits West Orange at 7:30 p.m., and Harmony plays at First Academy at 7 p.m.

Celebration already was scheduled to play today at

8 p.m. at ESPN Wide World of Sports against Monarch, Colo.

The Osceola-Freedom game will pit two of Central Florida’s most promising programs entering the 2011 season.

The Kowboys return the bulk of a team that was a regional qualifier last season, and the Patriots are one of the best teams Osceola will see this season, OHS Coach Doug Nichols said.

“They are really good, loaded on offense and defense,” he said. “We will have our hands full.”

Gateway Coach Marlin Roberts, after two lean seasons, is looking forward to today’s game to see how much his young players have improved. Roberts nursed a lineup loaded with freshmen and sophomores through a 2-8 season in 2010.

“I’m not really all that jazzed about going (tonight), but I just want to play. Our spring game was cut short in the first quarter,” he said. “The last thing I want is to go into the Poinciana game (next week) without having the work against another team.”

Celebration Coach Ben Aarestad led the Storm to their best regular season ever, 4-6, in 2010, but this year the Storm are starting from scratch, he said, after Celebration lost more than a dozen players since the spring drills.

St. Cloud Coach Mike Short said West Orange will provide a good test for a Bulldogs team that has playoff aspirations.

“West Orange is pretty good. They lost a couple of kids to transfers, but, man, they got a lot of impressive kids on the line and on defense,” he said.

The Bulldogs held their preseason scrimmage last week, and Short said the team appears ready for the season.

“Overall, I think we are about in line with where we should be,” he said.

The regular season for all local public school teams begins Sept. 2.

Private schools Life Christian Academy and City of Life Academy are scheduled to open their regular seasons Friday.