Senior AJ Wise accounted for more than 200 all-purpose yards and scored two touchdowns to lead Tohopekaliga (4-1, 1-0) to a 34-8 District 6A-5 win over rival Harmony (1-5, 0-2) Thursday night.
“It was great to get back home and better to win our fourth straight,” Tohopekaliga coach Anthony Paradiso said after his team opened the season with four straight road games and played at home for the first time since the Kickoff Classic on Aug. 14. “I thought we played pretty well on offense, defense and special teams. Gabe (quarterback Gabe Valez) had a good night passing, he made some plays with legs when he needed to and our defense stepped up. I believe it was also the first time in school history we kicked two field goals in a game.”
The Tigers took the opening kickoff down the field but were stopped on fourth down when a sure Velez touchdown was dropped in the end zone. It didn’t matter much as Velez directed a 9-play, 56-yard drive on his second possession and found Zion Williams on a 10-yard scoring strike for a 7-0 lead.
A shanked punt set up a second Tigers score as Tohopekaliga took possession at the Harmony 45. After a Longhorns’ penalty, Valez ripped a pass over the middle that Wise tipped to himself, broke a tackle and turned it into a 40-yard scoring play and a 14-0 lead that the Tigers took into halftime.
After a defensive stop to open the third, Tohopekaliga went on a 16-play drive – only to see it stall out on 14 and have to settle for a 31-yard field goal by Dinari Toney. The Tigers then recovered a squib kick and Kesan McDuffie put the game out of reach on a 29-yard touchdown run up the middle that make it 24-0.
On the next Tiger possession, Valez scrambled out of trouble to his right and fired it across the field and hit Wise in stride for a 24-yard touchdown pass to push the score to 31-0.
Harmony’s score came in the fourth quarter when sophomore quarterback Cooper Halquist threw an 8-yard touchdown pass to Ben Nurmi. Tohopekaliga tacked on a 40-yard field goal with six seconds remaining for the 34-8 final.
“We normally would take a knee in that situation but Toney had been working hard the last couple of weeks and we felt he deserved a chance to be try the long field goal and become the first kicker in our history to make two field goals in a game,” Paradiso added.
Valez finished 35-of-49 for 284 passing yards. Wise (10 catches, 138 yards), Tayshaun Dillard (4-49) and Jeovanni Smith (8-49) led the team in receiving yards.
Tohopekaliga will have its hands full next week when it hosts New Smyrna Beach for its Homecoming game. Ranked 21st in the state in 4A, the Barracudas take a 4-0 mark into a Friday night game with Seabreeze.
“It will certainly be a challenge,” Paradiso said. “But we will approach it like we do every week. We’ll work hard, worry about the things we can control and try to get better.”
