Thursday night’s 26-22 spring game win by Osceola over Central Florida power Edgewater on Thursday night featured a little bit of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.
The Good came in the form of first-year starting quarterback Gunner Holland. The rising junior showed a ton of composure in what was essentially his first start – running the two-minute drill to near perfection to lead Osceola on a 14-play, 87-yard drive that was capped by a game-winning 22-yard scoring pass to Isaiah Jean-Baptiste with 43 seconds remaining.
“Gunner was a little hyped up, we were trying to get his attention on a few plays in that final drive and he didn’t hear us. After he threw the touchdown pass and came over I told him he did a great job but he needed to pay attention to the sidelines a little more,” Coach Eric Pinellas laughed. “Gunner just smiled and said sorry coach I just have never been in that situation before.”
For a first start at quarterback against a great team, Holland was very solid – completing seven of 13 passes for 137 yards and three touchdowns. In addition to the game winner to Jean-Baptiste, he also threw a 29-yard strike to newcomer Tyjaun Massey and another one to Jean-Baptiste – this one covering 64-yards.
About the only negatives was a bad sack Holland took on the final drive. “That will come with experience,” Pinellas said. “He was outside the pocket and nothing was there he just needed to heave it out of bounds. He’ll learn that.”
In addition to the big games by Holland and Jean-Baptiste, rising sophomore Taevion Swint had 69 yards on 13 carries – but came up big on the game-winning drive. Swint, who led the Kowboys in both rushing and scoring as a reserve freshman last season – rushed for 35 yards on the final drive, including a four-yard gain on a 4th and one where he was hit twice behind the line of scrimmage.
Both teams played their backups and junior varsity for the entire first quarter and that was where the score difference came as Osceola took a 7-0 lead in that first period on an 81-yard touchdown run by Bryce Reed.
The Bad for the Kowboys came when their vaunted run defense that allowed 149 yards on 23 carries. Edgewater’s 6.4 yards per carry was considerably more than the 1.4 yards average the Kowboys gave up all last season. In addition, Osceola had trouble on special teams – as poor long snaps resulted in two extra points were blocked and several bad punts.
But Pinellas was not overly concerned about either.
“First, Edgewater is a very good team with talented athletes everywhere. One of our stud defensive lineman (Derrick Leblanc) did not play and we have a really young linebacker group that simply overran some plays. Those things can all be corrected.”
As far as special teams, Pinellas explained that both long snappers were performing those duties for the first time and both the kicker and punter were new. “That will definitely get better with reps and practice,” he said.
As for the Ugly, play was sloppy and more than a little chippy at times. Edgewater was whistled for 11 penalties for 95 yards; Osceola nine for 90. Four of the penalties (two on each side) were personal fouls and offsetting personal fouls were called two other times. “Call it youthful indiscretion or exuberance, but that is something we can’t afford to do. When there is a push or shove after the whistle we need to understand that we can’t retaliate. We need to be smart enough to walk back to the huddle and ignore it,” Pinellas said.
Overall, the second-year head coach said he was more than happy with the spring results.
“We were able to develop some depth on the offensive line. Enthusiasm was great and we really got better every day. Edgewater has been one of the top teams in the state, so this game was a great test for us.”
The Kowboys, who went 9-3 last season, will open fall camp in August and play a non-counting Kickoff Classic at traditional state power Apopka on Aug. 19 before opening the regular season at home against Treasure Coast on Aug. 26. Treasure Coast went 10-2 last season in Class 8A and advanced to the regional semifinals.
