Tohopekaliga hosts Gateway in Wednesday bowl game; Osceola and St. Cloud open playoffs Nov. 14
The 2025 football regular season came to an end last week. Two teams will continue into the playoffs next week, and three finished with 5-5 seasons (two, Gateway and Tohopekaliga, played in a Wednesday night bowl game).
St. Cloud finished 8-2 with a convincing 55-6 win over Lake Minneola Friday for a five-game winning streak to finish the season.
“If you had told me I could have had an 8-2 record and a district title at the beginning of the season I would have taken it in heartbeat,” Coach Mike Short said. “This team achieved so much this year and just got better as the season went along.”
It was the Bulldogs’ first eight-win season since 2008 (9-2), and players broke individual school records. With 290 passing yards against Lake Minneola, sophomore quarterback Jeremiah Lattier set the season passing mark (2,733). Two-way standout Bryce Williams is now the all-time single season leader in interceptions with nine.
Osceola, annual post-season participants, return to the post-season on a bit of a slide – having dropped their last two games to finish at 6-4. Still, head coach Eric Pinellas said the playoffs are the priority.
“We schedule not to try to win nine or 10 games every year, we schedule to get ready for the post-season and this year was no different,” Pinellas said after his team dropped back-to-back games to Lake Wales (8-2) and Lakewood (9-1). The Kowboys’ four losses were against teams that are 32-8, three were district champions and all should make the playoffs.
“We lost a ton of talented players from last year’s state runner-up team but we had a lot of talent returning,” he said. “The biggest thing is our depth wasn’t as good and we were in a position where we could not afford a ton of injuries. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case and we have been banged up all season.”
Osceola has had to play without the services of a dozen starters or key reserves for the last month. Last week, quarterback Amaree Rutland and several other starters were forced out of the game.
“Some of them could have gone back in but we didn’t want to risk losing anyone for the playoffs,” Pinellas said. “Hopefully we will rest those guys this week and have them back for the playoffs.”
Osceola appears locked in at the number three seed in Region 2, 6A and will host the number six seed on Nov. 7. Heading into the week, that opponent would have been Melbourne (6-4) but Pinellas believes idle Durant (5-5) will jump the Bulldogs after their 36-22 loss to Palm Beach Gardens. “Only a few one hundreds of a point separated them before last week, so I would not be surprised if Durant jumps them to the number six seed after Melbourne lost. Regardless, we will prepare for both until we know for sure.”
Two teams that finished at 5-5 will not have seen their season come to an end, as the Gateway Panthers and Tohopekaliga Tigers will play each other in a bowl game, Wednesday night at Tohopekaliga’s home field. Kickoff is 6:30 p.m. and proceeds will benefit the athletic programs at both schools.
Gateway won its third straight game Friday night against Celebration, 33-15, to finish with a non-losing record for the first time 2018. The turnaround happens just two seasons removed from an 0-10 record.
“After four wins last year, we took another step forward this year,” coach Marlin Roberts said. “Other than center, we return most of our key pieces next year and will hopefully continue to build on our momentum.”
Those key pieces include sophomore running back Nydrell Thigpen (1142 rushing yards), who became the Panthers first 1000-yard rusher since Philip Bangura accomplished it in back-to-back seasons in 2018-19.
Given the amount of talent that graduated in 2024 and the loss of several key transfers, Tohopekaliga coach Anthony Paradiso said he was extremely happy with the way his team (5-5) performed this year.
“We were in a total rebuild and played a much tougher schedule. These kids fought hard all season, got better each week and never quit,” the veteran coach said. “Super proud of the players and our coaching staff for how hard they worked this season.”
That grit was apparent in the final game, where the Tigers overcame a 14-point fourth quarter deficit to win at Avon Park, 30-28.
Wednesday’s Bowl Game will give Tohopekaliga quarterback Sabby Meassick a chance to add to his county’s all-time records in passing attempts (1775), completions (1120), yards (13,143) and touchdown passes (132).
Harmony also came up with a big win Friday night against Colonial, 43-21, to push its record to 5-5 in head coach Don Simon’s return to the school after spending two seasons as Tohopekaliga’s athletic director.
Five wins in 2025 matches Harmony’s combined total of wins over the last two campaigns.
“I am absolutely excited about where our program is headed. Although we lose some senior talent, we were able to work a lot of sophomores and juniors into the lineup and they got significant playing time,” Simon said. “More importantly, as the season progressed our players started to understand what it takes to win. The difference and improvement between this team now compared to the kickoff classic and week one against Windermere was night was night and day.”
Harmony will return several key players in 2026 including QB Landon Hayes, RB Nicholas Bertolini, LB Ryan Rogers and kicker Brayden Buehler.
Despite a 24-6 despite to close Poinciana’s season at 3-7, Coach Taron Mallard said players thrust into leadership roles after last year’s 9-2 program-defining season performed well.
“We were still fitting guys in who had transferred at the start of the year,” Mallard said following his team’s 38-0 Battle of the Boulevard win over Liberty. “The record won’t reflect the leadership I saw out of those guys. We’re positioned well for the future, which I hope includes a district.”
Although Liberty (0-10) has lost 14 straight games, first year head coach Janko Beras remained upbeat. “Talent wise, we were undermanned in many games this year but the thing is this group never quit on me. Last week, in our final game of the season (42-20 loss to Lake Buena Vista), I thought we played our best half of football all season. The fight was still there.”
Beras says this offseason will be vitally important as he tries to change the program’s culture. “Our off-season programs, weightlifting, conditioning and track are all going to be important for us. We definitely need to get bigger, faster and stronger.”
With the loss to Gateway, Celebration finished with a 1-9 record. Despite the record, several opposing coaches said Storm coach Chris Blanton has the program moving in the right direction. “I was very impressed with them,” Simon said after his team defeated Celebration 28-16 in Week 8. “They have some good athletes, they are disciplined and played hard. Coach Blanton is doing a really good job with that program.”
