By: J. Daniel Pearson
Osceola did just about everything right on Thursday night against Jones — except for win the game. Vernell Brown scored on a 1-yard touchdown run in overtime and the Tigers defense came up with a stop, as Jones held on for a 34-28 overtime win over Osceola on Thursday night.
The game never should have reached that point. With the scored tied 28-28, Osceola’s defense came up with a huge stop on third down and then blocked a punt to give the Kowboys a first down on the Jones 42 with just under three minutes remaining.
Needing just a field goal to win the game, Taevion Swint would take the ball 30 yards on a sweep play to give Osceola a first and 10 at the 12. But Osceola, who had burnt all three of its timeouts earlier in the half, would net just five yards on three consecutive runs as the clock continued to tick away. QB Camren West appeared to have lost track of the downs and tried to stop the clock by spiking it on fourth down.
“A young player lost track of what down it was and unfortunately spiked the ball in the ensuing confusion,” Osceola coach Eric Pinellas said. “But that is on me. We had a third down play that we thought would go for a touchdown and unfortunately they made a great play. In retrospect, we should have just spiked it on third down and went for the field goal fourth. Our thinking at the time was their offense is so explosive, we just didn’t want to give them the ball back with 35 or 45 seconds remaining.”
Under FHSAA rules, each team alternated possession from the 10-yard line in overtime until a winner is determined. At the start of overtime, Brown’s touchdown gave Jones the lead but a botched snap resulted in a missed extra point and Osceola still had a chance to win the game with a touchdown and an extra point. Three running plays netted just five yards and on a fourth and goal, West’s pass to the right corner end zone came up short and Jones (4-0) held on for the win.
Still Osceola played well enough to win, executing its game plan to near perfection. Pinellas said earlier in the week that he hoped his power running game would limit the number of possessions Jones had. He added that winning the special teams battle, not turning it over, coming up with big stops on third down and limiting penalties would be the keys to the game.
The Kowboys accomplished all of those things. Osceola rushed for 268 yards, scoring on three extended possessions, including an 18-play, 67-yard drive in the second quarter that took more than nine minutes off the clock. They limited Jones to just nine possessions in regulation and the offense also did not turn the ball over all night.
Osceola won the special teams battle with Alijah Jenkins returning a punt 90 yards for a touchdown, its defense blocking a punt and watching as kicker Adrian Gonzalez drove all five of his kickoffs out of the end zone for touchbacks. Osceola was also the more disciplined team, committing just three penalties for 20 yards compared to 11 for 116 by Jones.
But at the end of the day, it was the big plays that really cost Osceola the win.
In all, Jones had 19 plays that went for 10 or more yards. Quarterback Dareon Coleman completed 22 of 38 passes for 420 yards, including 13 for 229 yards to Florida commit Brown. Coleman had touchdown passes for 44, 20, 42 and 26 yards in the game. The 26-yard one to Antwoine Glover was particularly painful, as it came on a third and goal play.
“I thought our defense played pretty well, but we just gave up too many big plays.” Pinellas said. “What hurts the most is that we were in position to stop some of those plays. We had what should have been an interception deflected off our hands that ends up being complete going for something like 70 yards, We gave up a 40-yard touchdown pass in the third quarter because we didn’t line up correctly. Things like that are what hurt us tonight.”
Still Osceola (3-2) had a lot of bright moments. A banged up Swint, still nursing a shoulder injury from week 2, rushed for 106 yards and two scores. Jeffrey Sinophant has 79 on 11 carries and Elijah Hickson had 46 tough yards up the middle on 16 tries. Osceola’s four sacks included two by Josh Alamo and when you take away nine chunk plays of 20 or more yards, Osceola held the explosive Tigers to just 172 yards on the other 42 plays.
“Obviously none of us are happy with the loss, but I told our kids they needed to keep their heads up,” Pinellas said. “I told them this game proves they can play with any team in the state. This game was a non-district game against a team in another classification, so all our goals are still in front of us.”
