It was a tough night for high school football in Osceola County Friday.
Five teams sat at home as their games this week -- Mount Dora and Harmony, Celebration and Gateway, and the longstanding St. Cloud-Osceola rivalry -- were postponed due to COVID-19 concerns, and Poinciana was on its bye week.
That left Tohopekaliga and Liberty to take the field.
The Chargers played four quarters of spirited football, but fell to Haines City, 27-14.
The Toho Tigers, who drew Lake Minneola, last year's Class 6A state runners-up, and lost, 71-0. The Tigers were shut out in their Kickoff Classic and are looking for their first points of the year.
Defensively, Elias Fernandez, Daunte Riggins and Anthony Barnes notched tackles for loss, and punter Cameron Selfe averaged 35 yards on three punts.
While the Hawks' staff was coaching, Tigers' Coach Jeff Higgins was teaching, and implored his players to "get something out of it."
"We had guys who kept fighting no matter what the score was," Higgins said. "We're going to learn from this. We want finishers. It's going to be about the process and the long haul. We knew we had work to do. Hats off to Lake Minneola, they have the program where we want ours."
The Tigers go from seeing a state title contender to a team that's yet to play a snap against another team yet. Tohopekaliga goes a few miles down the road next week to play Gateway, the school Toho was carved out of.
"Everybody knows everybody in the county, and our guys will be geared up and ready to fight," Higgins said.
Sept. 2 schedule (all games 7 p.m.):
Liberty at St. Cloud
Celebration at Poinciana
Tohopekaliga at Gateway
Heritage at Harmony
Osceola at Cocoa
