3 top teams remain alive in FHSAA football playoffs
Regional semifinal favorites Edgewater, Kissimmee Osceola and Lake Minneola, all playing at home, averted upsets in high school football playoff games Friday night.
Undefeated Edgewater (12-0), the No. 1-ranked team in Class 3M (Metro), parlayed takeaways into a hard-fought 28-24 win against Tampa Bay Tech.
Eagles junior Cai Bates intercepted three passes and teammate Deven Thomas added a critical pick on a fourth-and-13 pass attempt by the Titans to seal the victory with time running out.
Kissimmee Osceola, the second seed in 4S (Suburban) Region 3, scored its only touchdown against Treasure Coast with 2 minutes, 11 seconds to go, which was enough for a 10-7 victory.
Lake Minneola (10-1), the No. 2 seed in 4S Region 2, gradually heated up on a chilly night in a lopsided 48-14 win against Winter Haven but not without some early issues. The Hawks led only 21-14 at halftime before breaking the game open.
Three more games involving Orlando-area teams were played later Saturday.
Jones (10-2) beat Oviedo (10-2) in a 3M semifinal played in the morning. In 4M Region 1 semifinals that began in the evening, Winter Park (10-1) played at Apopka (8-3) and Lake Mary (7-3) went to Sanford to face top seed Seminole (9-2).
Those results can be found at sentinelvarsity.com.
Chasing wins: Quarterback Chase Carter had two touchdown runs, one from 80 yards out, for a 21-7 halftime lead for Edgewater. He threw a TD pass to Camp Magee to open the scoring and broke free on a 36-yard TD keeper on fourthand-11 to make it 14-0 late in the first quarter.
Carter finished with 169 rushing yards.
Edgewater’s star running back, Cedric Baxter Jr., rushed for 95 yards, including a 41-yard TD that put the Eagles on top 28-17 with 10:11 to go. Baxter had another TD run nullified by a penalty in his heaviest contribution since he was sidelined by injury Oct. 10.
The Titans (9-3) closed the gap to 28-24 on a 27-yard TD pass. Edgewater held on.
“The fight and resiliency in this group, led by our senior class, was special,” said Eagles coach Cameron Duke.
Edgewater will stay home for next week’s region final. The Eagles will take on Jones, which beat Oviedo on Saturday morning.
Close call: Osceola’s backup quarterback David Buggs threw the game-winning 11-yard TD pass to Taevion Swint on a fourth-down play with time running out.
Treasure Coast (4-7) took a 7-3 lead into halftime on its own touchdown pass. The Titans opened the third quarter with a 20-play drive that chewed up nearly 11 minutes but were faced with a fourth down and missed a 30-yard field goal try.
Osceola drove downfield but also came up empty. Its defense forced Treasure Coast to punt with 6:08 left. Buggs completed a 24-yard pass to Ja’Keem Jackson down to the 19-yard line.
Three plays later, facing a fourth-and-2 at the 11, Swint sneaked through the middle and cut to his left on a pass route. He was wide open for the decisive touchdown reception.
“Our offensive line did a great job and it made it a pretty easy toss and catch,” Osceola coach Eric Pinellas said.
Osceola’s first score was a 26-yard field goal by Delvin Calhoun in the second quarter after a 12-play drive stalled.
“Best 4-7 high school team I’ve ever seen,” Pinellas said of Treasure Coast. “They kept the chains moving most of the night and really limited our opportunities.”
Osceola’s defense stuffed two runs with the clock running down. Derrick LeBlanc, who took the field midway through the second quarter after sitting out last week with an elbow injury, stopped a double reverse for a 4-yard loss and broke up a fourth-down pass to seal the deal.
Osceola will travel to play top seed Vero Beach (11-1) in the region final Friday.
Hawks soar: Quinn Niemann passed for 224 yards and four touchdowns, and John Celestin ran for 229 yards and two TDs on 30 carries to lead high-scoring Lake Minneola (10-1) to victory.
The defense did its part, intercepting five passes, two by Dylan Thomaselli.
The second seed Hawks will travel to play No. 1 Lakeland (11-0) in Friday’s region final.
Lake Minneola played with heavy hearts after freshman Owen Wells died after being a victim of a hit-and-run driver while walking to a school bus stop Thursday.
“We’re such a close family,” Lake Minneola coach Walter Banks said. “Our principal Mama Hawk [Linda Shepherd-Miller], made sure all the family’s close.
“We lost a fellow Hawk. That crushed the whole school. It gave us a little juice to play for him and his family.”
Braylon Knauth caught four passes for 119 yards, including touchdowns of 67 and 25 yards.
Niemann completed 13 of 21 throws, also tossing TDs to D’Nari Adams and David Ramos.
Celestin is among the state leaders with 34 TDs for a team averaging 46.6 points per game.
Winter Haven finished 8-4, a big turnaround from 1-9 in 2021, with Dr. Phillips alum James Thomson as its first-year head coach.
Losses in Jacksonville: The three Orlando private-school teams that traveled to Jacksonville ended their seasons.
Orlando Christian Prep (6-5) gave defending state champ Jacksonville Trinity Christian (11-0) trouble, as it did in 2021, before running out of gas and losing 30-13 in 1M Region 1. The Warriors led 13-7 at halftime following a 25-yard touchdown run by quarterback Vilay Nakkoun, but Trinity scored the final 23 points.
Bishop Moore (8-4) led 3-0 and 10-7 before losing 28-10 at Bolles (8-4) in 2M-1.
The First Academy (8-3) trailed University Christian 15-13 after scoring first-half touchdowns on a run by Ryon Smith and a pass from James McGinn to Julian Anderson. But UC had a kickoff return touchdown to take a 22-13 lead into halftime and scored the final 27 points in a 42-13 win.