St. Cloud replaces Liberty, who's in contact tracing, with Akelynn Angels Christian
When is opening night not opening night for high school football? When the COVID-19 pandemic messes with the schedule and results in cancellations for five of the eight public high schools in Osceola County.
Because a handful of teams were in the midst of contact tracing, only two of eight teams took the field last week.
St. Cloud, who saw its longstanding game with Osceola postponed a month, will play a different opponent than scheduled. Liberty, coming off a 27-14 loss to Haines City last week, was scheduled to meet the Bulldogs, but is in quarantine protocol. St. Cloud Athletic Direct Eric Godfrey said the team is looking for a replacement team for Friday.
Instead, the Bulldogs will face Akelynn's Angels Christian Academy out of Polk County on Friday at 7:30 p.m. The teams played last year, with St. Cloud winning, 42-0.
The only other county team to get in a game last week was Tohopekaliga, and they were thrashed by Lake Minneola, 71-0. It was not a total shock as Minneola reached the Class 6A state championship game last year and returned many highly recruited starters.
“We are a really young team but we are offering no excuses. Hats off to them, they played great,” Tigers Coach Jeff Higgins said. “We get back to work and get ready for Gateway this week.”
Gateway is scheduled to host Toho, which was carved mostly out of Gateway’s district, for the first time in the regular season Friday at 7; the Tigers won a spring game meeting in 2019. The Panthers will be taking the field for the first time this season after seeing both their preseason Kickoff Classic and their opener with Celebration being lost to tracing issues. The game with the Storm was originally moved from Friday to Saturday before additional tracing issues forced it to be canceled.
“Losing both games has been tough on us,” Gateway head coach Marlin Roberts said. “I know our kids want to get out there and play a game.”
Last week’s cancellation will make Osceola’s new season opener a lot more challenging as they travel to Cocoa on Friday night. The Tigers defeated Vero Beach, 42-41, on Friday night in overtime. O.J. Ross rushed for more than 100 yards and scored four touchdowns and also had the winning two-point conversion.
“They call that kid ‘The Juiceman’ and he runs behind a really good offensive line,” Kowboys Coach Eric Pinellas said. “Their quarterback is a tall kid who transferred in and he has some speedy wide receivers. They also have two D-I prospects on their defensive line so it should be a really good test for us.”
Pinellas added that the St. Cloud postponement was both a blessing and a curse.
“It would have been nice to play that game and get some more reps in for our starters prior to taking on Cocoa,” he added. “But by the same token we had some kids that got nicked up in the Lake Nona preseason game and the extra rest last week helped get us healthy.”
Across town, Harmony also saw its home opener with Mt. Dora canceled. They now open the season this Friday hosting Palm Bay Heritage at 7 p.m.
“Don’t know a whole lot about them except what I have seen on film from their kickoff game,” Simon said. “They are a young team that appears athletic and they also seem to be very well coached.”
Expect the Longhorns to try to control the ball with their running game. Tyler Emans and Cooper Richards combined for 238 yards rushing in Harmony’s 24-7 Kickoff Classic win over Freedom. The Longhorn defense also looked good in that game, making several key fourth down stops.
“Run the ball and control the clock will be the keys against Heritage,” Simon noted. He also said the postponed Mt. Dora game will be played on Wednesday, Sept. 15. “It just happened that our bye week lined up, so we’ll be able to get that game in without having to play more than one game in a week.”
One team that did not face a cancellation, but still did not play, was Poinciana, who purposely scheduled a bye week.
“We wanted that extra week to get ready for the regular season, so we scheduled our bye week in the first week,” Head Coach Randy Beeken said. “Given that so many games were cancelled last week, it might have been a pretty smart move anyways.”
Beckon says his team will have its hands full when it hosts Celebration on Friday night at 7 in the Eagles’ first home game in over a year; Osceola County replaced PHS’ football field with a more rain-resistant one last summer, but the work relegated the Eagles to road warriors in 2020.
The Storm opened some eyes, including Beeken’s, with a 46-30 Kickoff Classic win over St. Cloud.
“Coach (Rich) Pringle is doing a great job over there. They have some talented players and seem to be playing with a new attitude. It’s going to be a tough challenge for us,” Beeken said.
