SHERIDAN STRONG

American Heritage-Delray honors late coach and beats Benjamin for 1st win

DELRAY BEACH – It has been 10 days since American Heritage-Delray coach Brian Sheridan died, and the Stallions found ways to memorialize their late coach.

They honored him with T-shirts that said “#SheridanStrong.” They honored him with a moment of silence and by playing “Taps” before the game. And his team honored him with a win in their first game back on the field.

“We do everything for him now,” quarterback Dylan Rizk said. “Everything is Sheridan strong, #SheridanStrong. Every game we play is going to be for him. We know he’s watching us from above.”

The Stallions beat Benjamin 24-3 in Delray Beach on Friday, earning their first win of the season in emotional fashion.

“This team, the discipline, the ability to execute, the ability to fight through fatigue — coach Sheridan, that’s all the stuff that he had implemented, that he mandated over the course of the summer when he was out here every night, fighting it,” offensive coordinator and acting head coach Nick Martinez said. “It’s just awesome to see it come to fruition and turn into a win for us.”

Martinez and his coaching staff had the task of guiding his team full of high-school students following Sheridan’s death, and they did it through communication.

“They’re kids, they’re teenagers, but we treat them like men,” Martinez said. “We expect them out of them because conversation is key. Our position coaches have done an amazing job really just taking time to talk through it. A lot of these kids never felt anything like this. I’ve never felt anything like this. Honestly, it’s just really unbelievable the way we were able to come out and win. … It’s amazing. Put us back about a week and a half, the emotions we were fighting, the emotions I’m fighting literally right now as I’m talking to you, it’s just awesome.”

Both teams got off to a slow start, with American Heritage taking a 3-0 lead into the second quarter. But the Stallions finally found the end zone late in the second quarter, with wide receiver and FAU commit Brandon Schabert scoring a short rushing touchdown to give Heritage a 10-0 halftime lead.

Rizk connected with Brandyn Butler for a 32-yard score, and Butler added a second touchdown on a 49-yard run.

Rizk finished the game with 174 passing yards on 15 of 29 passing, and the Stallions got a strong contribution from backup running back Clay Cannon, who rushed for 106 yards.

“Clay Cannon came in, his first — in his entire career — his first real reps,” Martinez said. “We lose — who had pretty much been our feature back — Trey [Rainey], early, and Clay comes in and the kid, pound for pound, he’s just an amazing athlete. … Dylan Rizk is such a pure, amazing talent. … His ceiling is limitless.”

The Stallions kept the Buccaneers out of the end zone, limiting them to only three points. Heritage also p i c ke d off freshman quarterback Tyler Aronson three times, with JD Mason, Bobby Salla and Kristian Strong all securing interceptions.

“It’s coach Sheridan’s defense, man,” Martinez said. “We really drove the point that we wanted to keep the continuity of what coach Sheridan had. His playcalling ability, his ability to adjust, obviously he was a really good defensive coordinator.”