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Harmony WR Jada Bloodworth (11) gets ready to run a route while Celebration’s Val Martinez defends. Martinez came up with two interceptions on the night, but Harmony held on for 7- 6 win. PHOTO/J. DANIEL PEARSON -
The St. Cloud defense tries to break up at Osceola pass in Thursday's OBC semifinal. PHOTO/KEN JACKSON
The rematch at least one team wants comes Thursday for the Orange Belt Conference flag football championship Thursday.
Harmony at St Cloud won semifinals on Tuesday, with the Bulldogs downing Osceola going away, 30-7, and the Longhorns holding on with a pair of defensive stands to beat Celebration, 7-6.
The arch-rivals will go at it Thursday at 7 p.m at Osceola High. St. Cloud is the last county team to beat Harmony, with a 7-0 in the 2021 district championship game. Since then, Harmony has won 16 in a row against county opposition with three of those wins coming against the Bulldogs.
The Kowboys will host Celebration at 5 p.m. Thursday in the third-place game.
“Sometimes you need a game like this to test your resolve,” Harmony coach Paul Strauch said after Tuesday's game. “It can help you in the long run when you can find a way to win when you don’t play your best.”
Both Harmony and Celebration struggled to move the ball in the first quarter with each team throwing an interception. The Longhorns finally got on track midway through the second period as Martha Edwards threw a 9-yard scoring strike to Francheska Moreno for a 7-0 lead. A 37-yard completing from Edwards to Ashlyn Scarborough was the key play in the drive.
Two series later, Celebration would come up with a stop and have a chance to tie the score. The Storm would drive the length of the field but on the last play of the half, Storm quarterback Leena Bolejack’s pass in the end zone was tipped away by James as Harmony clung to the one score lead at intermission.
Edwards, a two-time Osceola County Player of the Year, would take the Longhorns down the red zone to open the third quarter. But on a fourth and goal from the eight, she misfired and Celebration was able to keep it a one-point game.
From there, Bolejack needed just four plays to make it a 7-6 game. She hit Nayala Rivera over the middle in stride and the sophomore would split two Longhorn defenders and race down the left sideline for a touchdown. But Harmony knocked down the conversion to keep its 1-point advantage.
After trading possessions, Harmony would have one more opportunity to put the game away. Taking over with six minutes remaining, Edwards led the Longhorns on a time-consuming 11-play drive. But on fourth and goal from the 3, Edwards was picked off for a fourth time, as Val Martinez took the interception, broke left and appeared headed for a potential game-winning score before she was run down at midfield.
“It was a scary moment because it looked like she (Martinez) was going to take it to the house,” Strauch said. “Making them try to score from midfield with only a minute left really helped us.”
Still, Bolejack would do everything in her power to will Celebration to the win. She completed three passes, before breaking a couple of runs. Including a pass interference penalty that was mixed in, she was able to get the Storm to the nine-yard line with 10 seconds left. With no timeouts remaining, Bolejack completed a pass to the 2 to Rivera, who lateraled the ball back to Ella Kolaric. But before she could reach the goal line, James came up with the flag pull at the 1-yard line as the clock expired.
Edwards had the uncharacteristic four interceptions. James led the team with seven receptions for 76 yards, in addition to the two huge defensive plays.
“Martha struggled a little but it wasn’t all on her,” Strauch said. Two of the interceptions came off deflections and she also had a wide open touchdown pass that was dropped.”
Bolejack finished 20 of 29 for 200 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions and also rushed for 49 yards on six carries. Rivera caught five passes for 95 yards and a score and also had an interception. Martinez had two interceptions for the Storm.
“While I don’t think we played our best, I don’t want to take anything away from Celebration,” Strauch added. “Ethan (Celebration coach Ethan Fournier) did a great job at tuning Liberty around last year and is now doing the same thing at Celebration.
St. Cloud also got off to a slow start Thursday, not really moving the ball until Priscilla Rodriguez took a short slant pattern and turned it into a 55-yard scoring strike. It opened things up a bit, as Danigzy Mantilla caught an 18-yarder in the end zone in heavy traffic on the next drive for a 12-7 lead.
But Osceola got right back into it on the next drive, when Alex Melendez got behind the defense and freshman passer Patricia Rodriguez found her on a 65-yard scoring strike right before halftime. That 12-7 St. Cloud lead looked tenuous when the Kowboys got the ball to start the third quarter and pieced together a drive to the 20-yard line, before Priscilla Rodriguez came up with a key interception that stole away all the momentum.
Savannah Kroener turned it into points with a 14-yard touchdown catch in heavy traffic. The drive was helped by a pair of unsportsmanlike conduct penalties on Osceola when two OHS assistant coaches were ejected -- likely needlessly -- after an exchange of words with the officiating crew.
Mantilla and Vanessa Vohs added fourth-quarter touchdowns once St. Cloud assumed the momentum -- a little late for SCHS Coach Shawn Beck.
"We preach not to overlook teams, and I know the girls want to face Harmony (Thursday)," he said. "We got started a little slow until we did a couple of the small things that got us back to playing the way we know to play."
In addition to the action at Osceola Thursday, Liberty will host Gateway in the fifth-place game and Poinciana will host Tohopekaliga in the seventh-place game, both at 6 p.m.
