By: J. Daniel Pearson
With seven classifications consisting of 16 teams each in four different regions, most football districts in the state of Florida are small – consisting of between 3-5 teams. With an automatic bid to the state playoffs reserved for each of the 16 district champions, each district game becomes vitally important.
For the five teams in Osceola County participating in the system, that journey to state playoffs begins this week as all will play their first district games of the season. “If you want to get to the state playoffs, winning your district is the absolute most important goal of the season,” St. Cloud head coach Mike Short said at the beginning of pre-season camp. “Although there are at-large spots available, you don’t want to put your fate in the hands of computer rankings.”
County teams St. Cloud, Tohopekaliga, and Harmony all share the same district (Class 7A, District 10) with Lake Nona. Those teams meet this weekend with Harmony (1-4) traveling to Tohopekaliga (2-2) on Thursday and St. Cloud playing at Lake Nona on Friday.
St. Cloud (2-3) is coming off a heart-breaking overtime loss to Merritt Island (4-1) on Friday, 26-23. Offensively, Logan King threw for a season-high 466 yards (177 went to Alex Springs) but it was not enough a few big plays sunk the Bulldogs.
Short says his team will need a similar offensive production against Lake Nona in order to get off to a good start in the district. “From film, you can tell right away they are well coached; they throw and run the ball equally well. Our defense is certainly going to have its hands full with them.”
Over the past couple of seasons, Harmony (1-4) has been known for its defense and Tohopekaliga (2-2) its offense. Although that was not the case last week for either team, as the Tigers scored just eight points in a 48-8 loss to Viera and Harmony gave up a bunch in a 40-18 loss to Lake Howell.
This game is fascinating on a couple of fronts. First, it is becoming a budding rivalry. Tohopekaliga AD Don Simon was the long-time head football coach at Harmony. Both teams are now in the same district, and Tohopekaliga may be looking for a little revenge after Harmony 23-14 upset win last year. Adding to the importance of this game, both teams probably need a district win to make it to the post-season playoffs.
Osceola (3-2) is in a small district (Class 6A, District 5) and will only have to beat Melbourne (3-2) at home this Friday and Viera (3-2) on Oct. 11 to claim another district championship. Head Coach Eric Pinellas said his team will not be suffering any “hangover” effect from last week’s tough 34-28 overtime loss to Jones.
“If anything that loss proves we can play with any team in the state,” Pinellas said. “Our kids take a lot of pride in the uniform and in themselves, so there is absolutely zero doubt we will come out next Friday ready to play our district opener.”
Melbourne is a “run first” team, which will put them square in the eyes of a stout Osceola defense that has been is allowing less than 50 yards per game rushing.
After last week’s 28-12 loss to Space Coast, Celebration finds itself 1-3 on the season as they open district play at East Ridge (Clermont). Winning Class 7A, District 9 championship will be a tall “ask” for Chris Blanton’s young team, as the district features perennial state power Dr. Phillips (4-0). Still, the Storm have some talented players and they could just as easily be 3-1 after a couple of close losses and should match-up fairly evenly with East Ridge (2-3).
Two of Osceola’s three independent teams (not eligible for state playoffs) meet on Thursday night as Liberty (2-3) travels to Gateway (2-3). Both teams are young, but both have some pretty good talent on both sides of the ball. Liberty, with a 16-0 win over Freedom, was the only county team to post a victory last week.
“I have a ton of respect for Coach Roberts (Gateway coach Marlin Roberts) and the job he does over at Gateway,” Liberty coach Dee Hart said. “They are a lot like us, they have some good players on both sides of the ball and they play very hard as a team. For us to be successful, we need to execute on all three phases of the game and avoid turnovers.”
The Panthers are coming off a 14-7 loss to Winter Springs in a game where they were driving for the possible go-ahead score in the final minutes of the contest before throwing a costly interception. Prior to that, Gateway posted back-to-back shutout wins and are at a respectable 2-3 after going a combined 2-17 in the previous two seasons.
“Defensively we played well enough to win again last week,” Roberts said. “We couldn’t get anything going offensively and penalties really hurt us. Liberty has done some good things and I think we are pretty evenly matched with them. It should be a great game.”
The county’s other independent team, Poinciana (3-1), is idle this week.
County Sports Notes: Winners of seven in a row and ranked fourth in the state in Class 7A, Osceola (15-3) volleyball has a huge Thursday night home game (7 p.m.) with Winter Park (15-1), who is ranked second in Class 7A. Osceola, who also plays at Holy Trinity on Wednesday, beat 15th ranked Hagerty in five sets last week. Harmony, who will be favored to meet Osceola in the Orange Belt Conference Championship finals next week, host St. Cloud (Tuesday) and East Ridge (Thursday) this week. The Lady Longhorns are 7-1 with their only loss coming to Osceola in three sets in early September.
In girls’ golf, defending OBC champion St. Cloud dominated 2023 runner-up Celebration last week 161-222. The Lady Bulldogs had four golfers post scores 43 or better – including co-medalists junior Karolyna Adams and freshman Abigail Murphy with matching 38s. Defending boys champion St. Cloud also appears to be the team to beat at the OBC Tournament on Oct. 22 as they remained undefeated in the county with a 152-181 win over Harmony. Junior Ethan Parish and freshman Arnold Pouncy shared medalist honors with 37s, but the Bulldogs have four golfers who can threaten par and should make a strong run at both district and regional championships this year.
St. Cloud is coming off two solid performances in the last two weeks of the cross country season. At the Lake Buena Vista Invitational on Sept. 4, Brody Ansbaugh (17:12.34) and Isaiah Casiano finished second and third to lead the Bulldogs to the team championship. Those same two went 22nd and 23rd in the highly competitive Hagerty Huskies Invitational this past Saturday to help St. Cloud to a 5th place finish. On the girls side, St. Cloud’s Lailana Decker (19:57.33) and Kyla Perez finished 1-2 as the Lady Bulldogs won the LBV Invitational. Decker was third overall in the Hagerty meet to lead St. Cloud to a seventh place finish.
