By STEVE JACKSON
The high school football season crashed to an unfortunate end for the three South Shore teams in the Florida playoffs last week.
Spoto High was walloped 51-6 by the Lakeland Dreadnaughts. East Bay High could not stay with its powerful opponent, Edgewater High of Orlando, which tattooed the Indians 35-7. Sumner High also lost its playoff elimination game, 34-27, to Newsome High. (See article and photos of Sumner football by Francis Fedor in this week’s newspaper, print and digital version at wwwobservernews.net/.)
The Spartans of coach Keith Chattin completed a 6-5 season and made it to the Florida playoffs for the first time since 2014. However, the Spartans were no match for the powerhouse, unbeaten Dreadnaughts, who romped to a 37-0 halftime lead.
The Dreadnaughts piled on 14 more points in the third quarter in Lakeland prior to Spoto’s tacking on a meaningless six points in the final stanza. Spoto junior quarterback Nathan Richardson finished with 138 yards passing and a TD.
Richardson hit 8 of 18 tosses, had two interceptions and rushed seven times for 26 yards. Also accumulating offensive numbers for the Spartans was junior receiver Jesse Harden, who pulled in four passes for 106 yards. Senior Spoto running back Jaedyn Cartwright was able to grind out 32 rushing yards on seven carries against a super-stout Lakeland defense.
Lakeland also possesses a good offense and gained 266 yards on the ground along with 102 in the air against a porous Spoto offense.
The defeat was a tough one for Spoto, but the Spartans completed a winning overall season, at 6-5 and 0-2 in District 5A. Spoto star senior Z’oray Cotton missed the last three games of the year for the Spartans.
East Bay not only lost to a superior team in the first round of 5A playoffs, but the Indians also lost their head coach, Mike Gottman. Coach Gottman, 60 years old, announced shortly after the loss in Orlando last Friday night that after 38 seasons as a high school football coach, including the last four seasons at East Bay, he is retiring. Coach Gottman previously coached at East Bay from 1995 to 2003 and then moved to take on the coaching job at Durant High as head coach. He returned as head coach at EB in 2021 and experienced success. This season the Indians were 7-4. In 2023 EB was 8-3. In 2022 EB finished at 10-2. In Gottman’s first year back at East Bay, his Indians went 8-3.
East Bay fell to a dominant Edgewater Eagles team in the opening round of 5A playoffs at Edgewater’s home field in Orlando, a three-hour grueling bus trip from East Bay High. That leaves EB at a respectable 7-4 on this season. East Bay got some passing yardage from senior quarterback Rocco Boyd, who went 8 for 12 throwing for 146 yards. The late TD to sophomore Carlos Lemons for the 33 yard score put the Indians on the scoreboard but was way too little way too late. East Bay handed the ball to senior running back Thomas Rieger 10 times, and he picked up 27 yards. Indians RB junior Harold Moure Cuello chimed in with 16 yards on five carries, but the overall rushing stats of EB were dominated by 37 yards in rushing losses to Boyd and a grand total of minus 5 yards rushing for the Indians team. Edgewater picked up 119 yards on the ground with a TD and 164 through the air with four TDs.
In other first round playoff football games and Nov. 22 2nd round games involving high schools in or near Hillsborough County:
• 7A: The Plant City Raiders beat Riverview of Sarasota 47-28. On Nov. 22 the 9-2 West Orange Warriors of Kissimmee visit 9-2 Plant City for the 2nd round of the playoffs.
• 6A: 7-4 Durant Cougars thumped South Lake of Groveland 35-17. Durant travels to 9-2 Osceloa for the 2nd round.
• 6A: 11-0 Armwood High wiped out Melbourne 49-0. Next up at home in Seffner for Armwood is 8-3 Plant High of Tampa.
• 6A: 5-6 Steinbrenner lost 42-7 to 11-0 West Boca Raton.
• 6A: 8-3 Plant High slapped Bartow 45-7. Mitchell wore out Parrish Community 29-7. Largo made it past Palmetto 28-20.
• 5A: 7-4 Gaither High beat Springstead 42-0. The Gaithers now get to visit unbeaten Lakeland, Nov. 22.
• 5A: Jesuit High tumbled Clearwater High 29-3. The 7-3 Tigers move on to visit 9-2 Port Charlotte, Nov. 22.
• 5A: Manatee County blasted Pinellas Park 55-26. The 2nd round for 8-1 Manatee is with 10-1 Immokalee High.