BOCA RATON —The North Broward Eagles played the roles of homecoming spoilers Friday night at Saint Andrews.
The Eagles’ defense was dominant, causing four turnovers, and holding the Scots to just seven points en route to 27-7 North Broward Prep (5-2) win. Saint Andrews finishes their regular season 5-4 after the loss, and will advance to their conference playoffs. North Broward, meanwhile, improves to 3-0 in non-conference play, and 3-0 on the road heading into their matchup with Glades Day next week.
North Broward Prep’s defensive coordinator, Rakeem Cedeño, must be pleased with his unit’s performance tonight as they held the Scots to under 200 total yards, and kept Saint Andrews to just seven points in a totally dominant effort overall. The Scots only points came after North Broward oddly ran the ball on a fourth and long, which set up Saint Andrews with outstanding field position at the Eagles’ 20-yard line. Even without defensive linemen Ted Arthur, Kenny Heningsen, and Troy Efird, the Eagles were nearly perfect on defense, causing four turnovers in their victory. In three road games now this season, North Broward has allowed an average of just about 13 points per game.
“They played awesome tonight, we’re very proud of them,” North Broward head coach Rex Nottage said about the defense’s play tonight, “They did an awesome job executing their plays and they’re extremely disciplined about it, so I was very proud of our defense.”
After the Eagles’ offense struggled for the majority of the first half, North Broward was able to recover a Saint Andrews’ fumble with just 1:04 left in the first half. Senior quarterback David Vozzola connected with Kevin Austin on a 46-yard pass, and Anthony Gomez on a 21-yard pass to set up the Eagles inside the five-yard line with under a minute to play in the first half. Just then, Vozzola hit C.J. Riley on a one-yard pass with just 18 seconds left in the half to extend the North Broward lead to 13-0, rising the Eagles’ momentum heading into halftime. North Broward had under 100 yards in the first half up until that final drive.
“It was a great momentum build for us to go into halftime,” Rex Nottage said, “Anytime we’re able to take the lead into halftime it’s huge.”
Eagles’ star senior receiver C.J. Riley was quiet tonight, besides a one-yard touchdown catch in the 2nd quarter, but his counterpart sophomore Kevin Austin was anything but that. Right from the get go, Austin caught a 43-yard touchdown pass, and was heavily involved in the offense throughout. The North Broward star underclassmen finished with well over 100 receiving yards in the win, a touchdown, and a two-point conversion pass he caught late in the third quarter. Austin now has eight receiving touchdowns on the season, which leads the team.
Before tonight, in each game that the Eagles’ had rushed for under 100 yards, they had lost (Archbishop McCarthy, Key West). However, that changed on Friday. Junior running back Dymitri McKenzie finished with under 100 rushing yards tonight, but North Broward was still able to pull away with the victory over the Scots. McKenzie did run in a 14-yard touchdown early in the fourth quarter to extend the Eagles’ lead to 27-7, but it was mostly the North Broward passing game that did the damage in this one. McKenzie will get some more help in the backfield next week as senior running back Andres Sierra—who hasn’t played since August 28th due to injury—will return next for the Eagles’ homecoming game.
After suffering all four of their losses on the road last season, and holding an eight game home winning streak heading into the season, North Broward Prep is now 2-2 at home, and 3-0 away from Tom Marcy field this season.
“It’s hard work,” Nottage said about the Eagles’ success on the road, “They go into a hostile territory, they believe in each other, and are able to get the job done.”
TRADING TURNOVERS: North Broward’s defense looked dominant early in this one, and it included a rare occurence in the first quarter. Eagles’ freshman defensive back Christian Paillet picked off Saint Andrews’ quarterback Ben Wandoff to set the Eagles’ up inside the Scots’ 20-yard line. On the following play, Eagles’ quarterback David Vozzola was picked off in the end zone by Davis Maxie of the Scots to give Saint Andrews the ball right back. The interception was Vozzola’s seventh in the last four games.
CLOSE CALL: In the first quarter, Saint Andrews’ running back Jon Frechter took a carry 76-yards to the house, a score that made the Scots’ homecoming crowd erupt, and would have cut the Eagles’ lead to 7-6 pending the extra point. However, the touchdown was called back due to a holding call against Saint Andrews, which erased the touchdown. The call deflated the crowd, as the Scots would go on to be forced to punt on that drive.
TUNING UP THE PLAYBOOK: With North Broward Prep containing two star receivers—C.J. Riley and Kevin Austin—offensive coordinator Derrick Mays has made a point that the Eagles’ need to establish a running game this season to keep defenses modest. Junior running back Dymitri McKenzie has done a phenomenal job rushing the ball this season, but the Eagles turned to quarterback David Vozzola a lot in the rushing attack Friday night, too. Vozzola rushed the ball just over ten times in this contest, something that Vozzola had been insistent that North Broward should implement in their playbook. Well, it paid off, as Vozzola took those rushes into a rushing touchdown, and just over 40 yards on the ground.
WHAT’S NEXT: North Broward will head back home for their homecoming game against Glades Day next Friday night. Kickoff will be at 7:00 P.M. E.T. as the Eagles search for their third home win of the season. It will also be senior night for North Broward, as it is their final regular season home game of the year. St. Andrew’s will have next week off before hosting the No. 6 National team in the Southeastern Football Conference Playoffs.
