By: J. Daniel Pearson
At the end of the day, Osceola won Friday night and will host a first round playoff game in two weeks.
The guess here is Osceola coach Eric Pinellas will want to see his team play a lot more like they did in the first half than what they did in second half of the Kowboys’28-22 regular season finale win over St. Petersburg Lakewood.
Behind Taevion Swint’s three touchdowns — the Kowboys were cruising both offensively and defensively in the first half –building a 21-0 lead. But after intermission, Lakewood quarterback Ayden Wallace threw for almost 300 yards and Osceola needed a goal line stand in the final minute to pull out the six point win.
The victory, Osceola’s fifth in a row, almost certainly assures them the number two seed in Region 2 and will give them home field advantage for the first round of the FHSAA Playoffs on Nov. 15.
But that was almost in doubt.
The game started slowly, with neither team moving the ball in the first quarter. But Osceola’s running game began to kick in and Swint opened the scoring with a 14-yard touchdown catch from Camren West. Following a defensive stop, Swint found the end zone again – capping a 8-play, 58-yard drive from two-yards out to make it 14-0.
Osceola then forced and recovered a fumble at midfield. Jeff Sinophat broke off a 47-yard run and Swint scored three plays later from seven yards out and the Kowboys led, 21-0. While the offense was racking up 221 yards rushing, its defense was keeping Lakewood at bay, limiting the Spartans to just 26 total yards on 16 plays, while forcing two turnovers. “In took a while to figure out what they were doing defensively in the first quarter. They were slanting in on both ends and really clogging the middle,” Pinellas said. “We started running counters and sweeps and getting out side and it paid off.”
But things shifted dramatically in the second half.
On his first drive, Wallace scrambled away from Osceola pressure several times – hitting passes of 26 and 38 yards. After the second big pass play, Khalan Davis scored from the two to cut the gap to 21-7.
Osceola’s Elijah Hixson would fumble on the very next play and Lakewood recovered at the 34. Wallace again scrambled out of trouble and hit Dmari Roberts for 14 yards before finding Keon Byas for a 19-yard touchdown. It was the Spartans second touchdown in less than five minutes but even with a blocked extra point it was still a one-score game, 21-13.
After Osceola muffed a snap a 43-yard field goal attempt, Lakewood was back in business on the Kowboy 33. Once again, Wallace avoided a blitz and Roberts in stride on a 67-yard pass to make it a two-point game, 21-19.
Jakari Watson almost broke the ensuing kickoff for a touchdown, but was tripped up at midfield by the last Lakewood defender. From there, Osceola would move 60-yards on six plays with Sinophat scoring on a 19-yard run to make it 28-19.
Behind the running and passing of Wallace, Lakewood drove 87 yards to Osceola two – where they had a first and goal. But the Kowboy defense stiffened and the Spartans had to settle for a 21-yard field goal from Cole Sosa-Jones to make it a 28-22 game with 6:50 remaining.
Osceola would go three and out on its next possession, giving Lakewood the ball back on its own 15 with a chance to win the game with a touchdown and extra point.
On the second play of his final drive, Wallace would scramble for 16 yards. After offsetting penalties nullified a 56-yard touchdown pass, Wallace completed a 34-yard pass Byas to give Lakewood a first down on the Kowboys 30. Three plays later, Wallace would scramble 19 yards on a fourth and 14 to set up a first and 10 on the Osceola 16. On next play, Tayshawn Bell set up a first and goal from the two by breaking loose on a 14-yard run.
With under 90 seconds remaining, A run lost two yards and an incomplete pass made it third and goal on the four. On the next play, Osceola stuffed another run but the Kowboys were called for a facemask penalty, which moved the ball back to the two and a repeat of third down. Wallace would misfire again to set up fourth down and goal. With 30 seconds left, Wallace rolled to his right and broke containment again but missed a wide open Roberts at the goal line.
Osceola took over, West took one knee and the Kowboys held on for the win.
“We put pressure on him (Wallace) all night and we simply could not get him on the ground in the second half,” Pinellas said after the win. “Give him some credit, he stayed cool under pressure and make plays after taking some big hits all night. But Wallace was not the only problem. We missed a lot of tackles tonight and gave them a lot of yardage after contact. The turnovers didn’t help matters for us either. I think we only had three possessions in the second half. Bottom line is we made this a lot harder on ourselves than I felt we needed to.”
For the game, Osceola both Swint (146) and Sinophat (131) had 100-yard rushing games as the Kowboys finished with 319 yards rushing and 331 yards of total offense.
But lack of a passing game also bothered Pinellas. “We are never going to throw the ball a lot when we do, we have to make plays. Alijah Jenkins was wide open for a touchdown and the ball just slipped out of Camren’s hands. We had another opportunity for a touchdown and he threw the ball to the middle of the field in double coverage, when we had a receiver wide open on the outside,” Pinellas added. “Again, this game should not have been as hard as we made it. We made too many mistakes on both offense and defense, but at the end of the day we won and now we have week off to get ready for the post-season.”
