FOOTBALL WEEK 10
Friday will see some significant football games played — a hallmark for this time of the season.
At the top of the list is a matchup at Osceola High to determine the Suburban 4 District 10 title; the upstart Tohopekaliga Tigers (5-3, 2-1) will face perennial power and red-hot Osceola Kowboys (5-3, 2-0) at Markus Paul Stadium at 7 p.m. Osceola enters Friday on a three-game winning streak where they have outscored opponents 1319, including last week’s 33-6 win over Daytona Beach Mainland, who was the No.1-ranked team in Suburban 3. Earlier in the season the Kowboys defeated Rockledge, then No. 2 in Suburban 3.
The Kowboys three losses are to Seminole (No. 2 in Metro 4), at Lakeland (No. 3 in Suburban 4) and at Jones (No. 4 in Metro 3).
“We played a difficult schedule this season to prepare us for the postseason,” Osceola Coach Eric Pinellas said. “We wanted to be playing our best football at the end of the season and we appear to be headed in that direction. Our goal is to just keep this momentum going in the final two weeks of the regular season.”
Anthony Paradiso and his staff deserve credit for turning around the Tohopekaliga football fortunes in just one year. Despite Monday’s surprising 21-20 loss to Celebration (1-7), the Tigers have assured themselves at least a .500 season after last year’s 2-8 record.
Although the Tigers enter Friday as underdogs, Paradiso has started to put together a foundation of a solid program at the school. Osceola’s potent rushing attack (although it didn’t score against Mainland) will contrast in style to the Tigers’ passing attack; freshman signal caller Sabby Meassick will likely rewrite the county’s single-season records this year.
“We’ve seen some of the things they’ve done on offense, and we feel pretty comfortable with our defense,” Pinellas said. “They’re going to have to block Derrick LeBlanc, John Walker and Elijah Palermo up front, and not everyone’s been able to do that.”
On the south side of town, Poinciana (5-2) can take another step towards school history when it hosts Winter Haven Ambassadors Christian Academy Friday. A win would tie the Eagles school record of six wins in one season and would put them one game from securing just the second winning record in the school’s 31-year history. The 2000 Poinciana team went 6-4 before losing to Belleview in the playoffs, its only playoff appearance.
Randy Beeken’s team put themselves in the position for the school record with a 49-47 overtime road win over Lake Buena Vista Friday. The Eagles led in that game 27-14 at halftime and was ahead 41-14 late in the third quarter when the Vipers scored, and then successfully executed three onside kicks and tied the game late in the fourth quarter, 41-41. Lake Buena Vista had a chance to win in regulation, but Perry Garrett blocked the extra point to send it to overtime.
The Eagles scored first in to go up 49-41 after a two-point conversion. LBV scored on fourth down of its possession, but cornerback Dav’rell Cohn tackled a LBV ballcarrier short of the goal line to preserve the win.
“It was one intense, crazy game. I really thought going in, we should have won this game easily but Joe (LBV coach Joe Rienzi) did a fantastic job scheming us,” Beeken said. “Only four officials showed up for the game and that made it difficult for them to cover the whole field and a lot of calls were missed. That said, we simply could not get it together on special teams and allowed them back into the game. Still, we’ve put ourselves in position to set some school history.”
Poinciana had several standouts in the LBV game, including Garrett (2 touchdowns, the blocked kick) and quarterback De’kwan Bradley (five total TDs, four passing); while Donald Cummings and Michael Centeno each had a receiving touchdown.
Harmony (5-3) will look to keep its postseason hopes alive when it hosts Palm Bay Heritage (35) on Friday. Both teams are 1-1 in the district and both have played difficult schedules this year. The Longhorns are coming off a roller coaster week, where they lost an emotional 9-7 game to Melbourne on a Tuesday night in a make-up district game but came back three nights later to pound out an impressive 40-7 road win over Tohopekaliga.
Tyler Emans exploded for four touchdowns in that game on nearly 300 yards rushing and the Longhorns defense forced eight turnovers in the game, including intercepting Meassick five times.
After enjoying their bye week, St. Cloud (5-3) will look for its sixth win of the year when they host a Celebration team now flush with momentum after Monday’s big win. Bulldog sophomore quarterback Logan King has put together a nice season with 17 touchdown passes and 1665 passing yards in his first full season as a starter.
Gateway (2-5) will look for its third win of the season when it travels to Davenport (1-6) in a match-up of struggling teams. The Panthers will start their sixth different quarterback this year in Jeremiah Scott, as the team has dealt with injuries, defections and suspensions of five different starters this season. Coach Marlin Roberts said his team beat itself in the 28-6 loss to Lake Wales last week.
“We took the opening kickoff and marched to the red zone only to throw a pick-six on the next play. We failed to score two other times from inside the 10. If we execute, we certainly would be in the game.”
Liberty (0-8 overall, 0-4 district), did not get a head coach in place until after fall practices started and continue to struggle as they have been out-scored 358-6 this season. They travel to Lake Region for a district game this weekend before finishing up their season at home next weekend against Poinciana in the annual “Battle of the Boulevard.”
