Annual ZHS scrimmage serves as a warmup for Friday’s matchup against Mitchell
Football returned to Bulldog Stadium Friday night for the annual Orange and Black scrimmage where the Black Squad took a 10-0 win over the Orange.
Jaxson Rivera’s 23-yard field goal and Tymar McKeever’s five-yard touchdown run in the second half secured the win in an otherwise stout defensive battle.
Following four quarters of play, an additional 15 minutes was put on the clock for the JV players and the Orange squad added 14 points to the scoreboard.
The Orange and Black game serves as a warm up for the Bulldogs’ Spring matchup against Mitchell, May 21 at 7:30 p.m. The Mustangs were 11-1 last season losing only to Edgewater in the Class 7A playoffs.
“I think when we all work as one, we’ll all have success on the field,” said Zephyrhills head coach Nick Carroll. “We have a big week ahead of us to get ready for Mitchell. They are going to be good. This is just another practice to watch film.”
The Bulldogs returned to the field after a successful season where they finished 8-3 with a pair of playoff wins.
“It was a lot of fun,” said Rivera, who was also the winning quarterback on the Black squad. “We’ve been waiting for the game for two weeks. There has so much smack talking over the last week and coach Carroll has been doing most of it. We get the bragging rights.
“We need some team bonding. We need to come together to play Mitchell.”
Carroll preaches competitive excellence in his program, so watching his Bulldogs compete, was a thrill.
“It was cool to watch them compete,” Carroll said. “We’re back to work on Monday. We’ve have been hitting each other for three weeks. It will be good to see us hit someone else. We’ll see how we gel and work together.
Linebacker Theotis Smith said when the team was split into two squads, the Black team was the underdog and they had something to prove.
“Coming into this game, we already had a chip on our shoulder,” Smith said. “We had to come out on top. I hope it was a good learning experience for the young guys and we all need to learn from our mistakes.”
The White squad played strong defense allowing just 10 points, but there is a need to see more out of the offense.
“We need work on the offensive side,” said junior Maguire Neal of the White squad. “We are all learning from this and it will help us against Mitchell.”