WEEK 9 FOOTBALL — Tigers lock horns with Longhorns; Kowboys seek statement win by the beach

When a team loses a ton of Division-I talent to graduation or injury and starts the season 0-5, it would be normal to develop a “wait until next year” attitude.

But the Osceola Kowboys, long a state football power, are not a normal team.

The Kowboys (2-5, 2-0) set up a winner-take all game with upstart Tohopekaliga (5-2, 2-0) for the District 4S-10 championship next with a convincing 56-0 win over Celebration Friday. While that game is likely the only path to the playoffs for either team, Kowboys Coach Eric Pinellas says he is not even thinking about that game this week.

“Our most important game of the year is this week,” Pinellas said about Osceola’s matchup Thursday night at 7 p.m. at Daytona Beach Mainland (7-0) – ranked No. 1 in Class 3S and No. 2 across all state teams.

“We had a ton of injuries early in the season and frankly we did not play very well against a tough schedule,” Pinellas said. “But I can promise you the team we have now and is not the team we had at the beginning of the year. We’ve had two great weeks of practice and we believe we are pretty good team and this week we have an opportunity to prove that.”

There may be additional motivation for both sides. Mainland, last year’s Class 3S state runner-up, lost 33-7 to OHS last year in a game word is they didn’t want to play—Mainland had to play a district make-up game the following Monday and asked the Kowboys to cancel the game for several weeks.

“It seems like every team in state had district games to make up last year including us. That meant having to play three games in eight days (which OHS did),” Pinellas said. “What’s funny is, they called last week and were worried that we would try to cancel. With their record, I am sure they are going to be confident and be looking for revenge, but we are as healthy as we have been all season and we hope to go up there and prove that we are still Osceola and still a team to worry about.”

Mainland is the fourth OHS opponent ranked in the top five in the state in their classification.

Osceola totally dominated the Celebration game, scoring touchdowns on all seven offensive possessions, adding a defensive score and holding the Storm to -13 total yards. Osceola was able to play their reserves for most of the game, getting “valuable and meaningful reps to some young players,” according to Pinellas.

Tohopekaliga, 18-14 come from behind winners over Gulf Breeze last week, is another team not looking ahead to the showdown with the Kowboys. The Tigers have a 7 p.m. Friday road game with local rival Harmony (1-6), a team that defeated Tohopekaliga 40-7 last year. Tigers coach Anthony Paradiso says revenge against the Longhorns is not a motive.

“We don’t pay a lot of attention to what a happened last year or in history. We will look at what we did wrong last week and see where we can improve,” he said. “Both teams are totally different this year and have their own pass from sophomore Sabby Meassick to Jayden Oliver to get by Gulf Breeze despite piling up more than 500 yards of total offense.

“We had three offensive starters out and had to shuffle our lineup,” Paradiso said. “We really had some nice drives but we would make a mistake and those drives stalled out. We threw Sabby to the wolves last year and he threw 400 passes as a freshman and he made some mistakes but it was a great learning experience. This year, he continues to get better and better and frankly we had total confidence in him on that final drive.”

Meassick continues to pile up mind-boggling numbers. He completed 37 of 56 passes for 421 yards and three touchdowns, and has compiled a state-leading 2,881 passing yards and 33 touchdown passes this year.

Harmony (1-6) continues to rebuild under first-year head coach Nick Lippert as a ton of youth plays both sides of the ball, like in the Longhorns’ 26-0 loss to Viera last week.

Other games involving county teams this week include Groveland’s South Lake (2-5) hosting St. Cloud (4-3); Celebration (1-6) playing at Flagler Palm Coast (2-4); and District 3S-8 games between Lake Region (2-4) and Gateway — the Panthers’ first game on campus all year — and Liberty (2-5) visiting Lake Wales (7-0). Independent Poinciana (2-5) hosts Lake Buena Vista (4-2).

Of those teams, only St. Cloud posted a win last week. The Bulldogs used 327 yards and six passing touchdowns from Logan King in a 51-18 win over Miami Garden’s TRU Prep Academy. Owen Conner (8 catches, 220 yards) hauled in three of those TD passes.

Playing without quarterback Cameron Brown and top running back Akeem Knox (injuries), Poinciana dropped a tough 17-14 decision to North Port, in a game where they led 14-3 at halftime behind a touchdown run by Noah Otero and a TD reception Amir Alli. Meanwhile, North Port (5-1) needed a touchdown in the final minutes to pull out the win.

“With our top QB and RB out, we simply could not get anything going in the second half,” Eagles Coach Randy Beeken said. “It was our second straight one-score loss and another game, we certainly could have won.”