Two teams from District 8A-2 will get a trip to the state playoffs. Figuring out who will emerge from the district is anyone’s guess.
University Orange City was already playing with some fire when they went to Lake Brantley for a second district game against a team ranked in the Orlando Sentinel’s Super 16.
Even with a strong running back in Lorenzo Lingard, the Titans managed just one first down in the second half and needed their defense to stand tall in a 10-3 win over the Seminoles in Sanford. It came really close too with the Seminoles giving the ball up on fourth down inside University’s 20-yard line.
Still, Seminole is another team rated in the top 16 in the region by the Orlando Sentinel. It was a critical game for district pecking order.
But then so too was University’s game against Lake Brantley last Friday.
There, the Titans could not keep the pace and could not finish the deal.
The Patriots went on the road and scored a somewhat surprising 24-20 victory over that stout Titans defense. They got a 22-yard pass from Jared Bernhardt to Devin Frater with 33 seconds left to steal the victory, throwing the district into further chaos for the two playoff spots.
For Lake Brantley, it was the culmination of all the things the team sought to fix after last year’s three-win season, as Bernhardt told Alicia DelGallo of the Orlando Sentinel:
“Our theme this whole season is finish strong. We’ve been saying that from the beginning. We didn’t really come out strong tonight. We made a lot of mistakes but we just needed to finish strong, and we did.”
The Patriots did nearly lose the game with a fumble late in the fourth quarter. But the defense stood tall and prevented a score as University went for it and failed on a fourth and goal.
Now the district standings seem much more muddied.
Lake Brantley sits at 2-0 after defeating Lake Mary and University. District favorites University is now 1-1, but likely with the two toughest teams out of the way. Seminole recovered and is now 2-1 in the district after winning out of district last week.
What makes this district so competitive is not just the presence of three teams in the Sentinel’s Super 16 at some point this year, but also the competitive level of four teams fighting for two playoff spots later in the year.
University has a strong defense and a tough running back in Lorenzo Lingard.
Lake Brantley has obviously made its presence known behind Bernhardt’s leadership.
Seminole has a great defense still that bottled up University for all but two drives it seemed and a strong running quarterback in Kaylan Wiggins.
Lake Mary has played well behind quarterback Charles Peterson and an array of receivers capable of scoring long touchdowns when Peterson is accurate. The Rams are just 1-3 and 1-1 in the conference but are capable of taking strong teams like Dr. Phillips the distance.
These are some really good teams. And the district is going to come down to results coming out each week.
This Friday, Seminole gets its date with Lake Brantley. And University heads to Lyman. Lake Mary looks to bounce back for its second district win against Oviedo.
The district is going to remain a pile up and one of the more interesting district races in the area.
