District 7A-10 now a free-for-all, may be settled by FHSAA rankings next week
Baseball Hall of Fame Yogi Berra once famously said “It’s Like Déjà vu All Over Again.” That well known malapropism certainly applied to St. Cloud’s 31-24 win over Tohopekaliga on Friday as the two halves of football were complete mirrors of each other in terms of big plays, turnovers and penalties.
At the end of the night, Bryce Williams’ interception and 26-yard touchdown return proved to be the difference as St. Cloud evened its overall season and district record (4-4, 1-1) and set up an intriguing Week 10 in the Class 7A, District 10 race.
Tohopekaliga fell to 4-3 and 1-1 in district play and now heads to Lake Nona (5-3, 2-0). A win by the Tigers and a St. Cloud win over Harmony (1-5, 0-2) in the next week’s Soldier City Classic would leave the Lions, Tigers and Bulldogs all tied for the district title with identical 2-1 records. The tie would be broken with the highest team in the FHSAA’s state rankings being awarded the district title.
“We’re not going to worry about that right now,” St. Cloud coach Mike Short said. “For the next 24 hours we are going to enjoy this win and then we are going to get back to work and get ready for Harmony and our biggest game of the year. Given what happened the last two times we played Toho, I’m not going to say this was my favorite win of my career, but it certainly is right up there.”
In the last two meetings between the schools, Tohopekaliga used turnovers, mistakes and big plays to record two lopsided wins over the Bulldogs (41-19 last year and 47-6 in 2022) and Short had to be feel like it was happening again after watching his team turn the ball over four times in the first half (five if you count an on-sides kick recovery) and give up four huge plays as Tohopekaliga built a 24-10 halftime lead.
The huge plays included a 94-yard touchdown run by Jaxson Hardnett on Tohopekaliga’s second play from scrimmage and touchdown passes of 69 and 70 yards from junior quarterback Sabby Meassick to senior wide receiver Emanuel Theagene.
Despite a 19-yard scoring pass from Logan King to Alex Springs and a 24-yard field goal from Daniel Elizando, St. Cloud found itself in a 14-point hole at halftime as the Bulldogs allowed 319 offensive yards and had the five turnovers.
Still, Short believed his team could come back.
“Almost two-thirds of their yards came on just four plays and we essentially had five turnovers but still only trailed by two scores,” Short said. “I felt if we could eliminate our mistakes, create a couple of turnovers and make a couple of big plays on our side of the ball, we would have a chance.”
That is exactly what happened.
In quick fashion, St. Cloud opened the second half by recovering an onsides kick. Three plays later, King hit Springs on a 49-yard scoring strike to cut the lead to 24-17. On the next play, St. Cloud forced and recovered a fumble and King needed just two plays to find Springs again – this time from 37-yards out to tie the game at 24-24 just one minute and 25 seconds into the third quarter.
After the teams exchanged stops, the Williams interception and return for touchdown put St. Cloud up 31-24.
Neither team would score again as Tohopekaliga saw its final three drives stall out; the St. Cloud defense came up with a fumble recovery, a forced punt and an interception. St. Cloud limited Tohopekaliga to just 73 net yards and zero points in the second half. The final stop came on a Jayden Taylor interception on the St. Cloud 25 with 8:23 left in the fourth when Tohopekaliga was driving for the potential game-tying score.
From there, King would run out the clock with a magnificent 13-play drive that ended on two kneel downs on the Tohopekaliga 12-yard line. King’s 12-yard scramble on third-and-13 and two big first down runs by Springs sealed the win.
“He’s not very mobile so I told Logan since his freshman year that I never wanted to ever see him run the ball, but tell you the truth he looked like Lamar Jackson on that play,” Short joked. “But seriously, that was a huge play for us and I also can’t say enough about Alex Springs. Why this guy doesn’t have three dozen Division I football offers is a mystery to me.”
King finished 15-of-29 for 304 yards. Seven went to Springs for 169 yards and the three scores. TJ Griffin led the Bulldogs with 95 yards rushing on 15 carries. For the Tigers, Meassick was 13-for-27 for 239 yards, two scores and three interceptions. Theagene had five of those catches for 203 yards. Hardnett had 125 yards rushing for the Tigers but left the game one play into the third quarter with an injury.
For his part, Tohopekaliga Anthony Paradiso was philosophical in the loss. “You can never turn the ball over five or six times and have 100 yards in penalties and expect to win,” the veteran coach said. “We jumped out to a big lead in the first half but we also just missed on a couple of other opportunities that could have clinched the game for us early. We graduated a lot of experienced players in key positions after last year and now we are playing a lot of young guys. Hopefully we can make this a learning experience and we certainly have a lot to left to play for this year.”
In all, the two teams combined for 10 turnovers (12 counting the two on-side kick recoveries) and more than 200 yards in penalties. Although it was far from artistic, Short called the game “beautiful,” while Paradiso probably would come up with another adjective.
