St. Cloud Bryce Williams hits Lake Nona receiver Cristian Cuffy in the third quarter of Friday's regional quarterfinal playoff game. (Photo/Taylor McFee)
Lake Nona quarterback Luke Ramsey ran for touchdowns of 1 and 42 yards, and Charles Woodson Jr., the son of the Heisman Trophy winner, also scored via a pass and interception return as the Lions defeated St. Cloud, 29-0, in Friday's Region 7A-3 playoff quarterfinal.
Lake Nona (8-3) avenged a 25-17 regular-season loss over the Bulldogs, who end their season at 8-3. St. Cloud sought its first playoff win since 1980.
"We didn't did the offense we've seen the last six weeks," Bulldogs Coach Mike Short said. "Credit to Lake Nona, they played great. Their defense did what we gameplanned for. Plus we just couldn't get a call."
One of those was an apparent fumble that Bryce Williams came out of a pile with just 75 seconds into the game. He would have gone untouched 70 yards to the end zone, but officials called forward progress stopped. Alejandro Quintero kicked a 49-yard field goal two plays later.
"Instead of down 3-0, we're up 7-0," Short said. "At that point, who knows."
It stayed that way until late in the first half, as the teams combined to go 0-for-9 on their third-down attempts. The Bulldogs made several big defensive plays to stay in touch; the snuffed out a fake punt, Jude Cockcroft stopped Ramsey on a 4th-and-2 run in the red zone, and Milton Caraballo recovered a fumble. But they weren't able to turn any into points.
Then, after stopping St. Cloud on a 4th-and-2 from the Lions' 35 with less than a minute left in the half, Lake Nona Coach David Aubrey dialed up a halfback option pass, and J.J. Hill hit Charles Woodson for a 65-yard scoring strike to give the Lions a 10-0 lead that wouldn't be threatened.
Bulldogs' running back Cameron Dalton ran 14 times for 69 yards in his final St. Cloud game. In his first playoff appearance, sophomore Jeremiah Lattier was 19-of-32 for 96 passing yards.
Next week the Lions will travel to No. 1 regional seed Vero Beach (11-0), who defeated East Ridge 57-10, in the regional semifinal.
