Osceola headed back to the playoffs for 16th straight year
Although they won for just the third time this season, the Osceola Kowboys are headed back to the state football playoffs for a 17th consecutive year. The Kowboys earned that right Friday by shutting out Tohopekaliga, 38-0, to claim the District 4S-10 championship.
The Kowboys (3-6, 3-0 in district) will conclude its regular season next week with a road game against West Orange (3-6). For the post-season, playoff teams will be seeded 1-8 in Region 3. If Osceola is paired with an at-large team, it would play the first round at home at Markus Paul Stadium on Nov. 10. If paired with a higher seeded district champion in the first round, they would play on the road. Tohopekaliga (5-4, 2-1) concludes its regular season next week at Haines City.
Osceola had to overcome a slow start in the game with Tigers.
The Kowboys scored on their first possession, driving 50 yards on 11 plays and took a 7-0 lead on Taevion Swint’s 13-yard touchdown run. After another defensive stop, Osceola had another short field but saw its offense bog down in the red zone and had to settle for a 33-yard field goal from Adam El Baraka, increasing the lead to 10-0.
But from there, neither team could muster much offense for the remainder of the half. Osceola’s running game could not get on track, but its defense limited the Tigers to just 88 offensive yards in the first half, 40 coming on a flanker pass from Naeem Woulard to Tre Punter late in the second quarter. Quarterback Sabby Meassick completed two quick passes for 21 yards and clocked the ball with three seconds left, but Taylor Domres missed a 40-yard field goal at the buzzer.
Osceola finally began to exert its dominance with the running game in the third quarter behind quarterback Camren West and back Elijah Hickson after Swint left with an ankle injury. After a short Tigers punt, West scored five plays later from 2 yards out and Osceola led 17-0.
Things would go from bad to worse for the Tigers on their ensuing possession. Two quarterback sacks, an incomplete pass and another shanked punt gave Osceola the ball inside the Tohopekaliga 10. Hickson would run it in on the first play to make it 24-0.
From there, Osceola would just play smash mouth football. Hickson finished with 125 yards on 17 carries and Alijah Jenkins and Zion Mathews tacked on fourth-quarter touchdown runs.
“Alijah is a very talented runner,” Pinellas said. “Unfortunately he is in the same class and plays the same position as Taevion. But he knows his role and he produced big time for us tonight.”
Osceola finished the game with 242 yards rushing, with 199 of those coming after halftime.
“I think we were just trying to be a little too fancy in the first half,” Pinellas said. “We just decided to lineup and run it directly at them in the second half. They were doing some blitzes and squeezing off the end in the first half and we were just running into that defense. We just got a lot more physical in the second half.”
While the game was clicking, the Kowboy defense continued to shut down the Toho offense in the second half. The Kowboys limited Meassick to 7 for 19 passing in the second half for just 50 yards. They also sacked him twice. Overall, the Kowboys allowed just 126 yards of total offense.
