WEST ORANGE DEFEATS OSCEOLA 35-21

[Ray Icaza]

Props to the Warriors on last nights win as they made the plays necessary for the win and we did not.  Our coach was quoted prior to kickoff that turnovers and special teams would decide the outcome, so in retrospect that was the difference.  We had 4 turnovers they had none, kicking game gave them field position throughout and kickoff return for touchdown just before half was a killer.  Game was decided at the end of 2nd quarter and start of 3rd when after 2 long drives TD passes were dropped in the end zone by one of our receivers both times for the lead.  Scores for West Orange came on big pass plays with bad safety reads and missed tackles as they only mounted 1 drive against the defense the entire night.  Their longest run play was for maybe 2 or 3 yards and total for the game not counting sacks was maybe 15 yards.  We also gifted them over 100 yards in penalties as the icing on the cake.  Look forward to seeing them again in the playoffs and feel like our kids will realize we are better and can learn to correct our mistakes.

[DarterBlue2]

Good summary of the game. Despite the margin, I was not at all convinced that the better team won. Osceola needs to learn from this and if they face WO again, correct the more blatant mistakes that contributed to the final score last night.

[Ray Icaza]

3 minutes ago, DarterBlue2 said:

Good summary of the game. Despite the margin, I was not at all convinced that the better team won. Osceola needs to learn from this and if they face WO again, correct the more blatant mistakes that contributed to the final score last night.

Mascoe has a big arm, but he also needs to improve his decision making as he takes too many unnecessary chances with some of his throws and as the QB not lead the team in turnovers.  Last year in the finals, he had 3 of the 5 we committed and I would have hoped that he would have improved that part of his game but I did not sense that last night.  The other improvement he needs to make is eliminating negative plays, taking sacks he could have just thrown the ball away rather than hanging on to it too long for 5-10 yard losses.  We shall see.

[Jullian]

8 minutes ago, Ray Icaza said:

Mascoe has a big arm, but he also needs to improve his decision making as he takes too many unnecessary chances with some of his throws and as the QB not lead the team in turnovers.  Last year in the finals, he had 3 of the 5 we committed and I would have hoped that he would have improved that part of his game but I did not sense that last night.  The other improvement he needs to make is eliminating negative plays, taking sacks he could have just thrown the ball away rather than hanging on to it too long for 5-10 yard losses.  We shall see.

Was surprised to see 35 points given up by your great defense. Short fields? Special teams?

[Ray Icaza]

Just now, Jullian said:

Was surprised to see 35 points given up by your great defense. Short fields? Special teams?

I didn't expect them to score more than 14 against our defense.  Usually our safety play is sound, but on a couple of plays they failed to make the correct read on deep passes and our corner got burned.  14 points came from Kick off return and a pick six late in the 4th quarter at our end of the field with the score at 28-21 on a last ditch drive.  

[Jullian]

6 minutes ago, Ray Icaza said:

I didn't expect them to score more than 14 against our defense.  Usually our safety play is sound, but on a couple of plays they failed to make the correct read on deep passes and our corner got burned.  14 points came from Kick off return and a pick six late in the 4th quarter at our end of the field with the score at 28-21 on a last ditch drive.  

Wow! Gotta feeling the rematch, if there’s one, could b altogether different. 

[Ray Icaza]

1 minute ago, Jullian said:

Wow! Gotta feeling the rematch, if there’s one, could b altogether different. 

If we play a clean game.  They also have a very good defense, but we marched the ball the length of the field all night and on 3 occassions came up empty.  Initial drive, fumbled a handoff (unforced error) at their 30 yard line to kill a drive.  Long drive late in the 2nd quarter and early in the 3rd quarter came up empty with dropped TD passes in the end zone by #20 who was replacing our starter in the slot #6; he was held out with a minor injury.  Penalties had us having to constantly convert 3rd and long throughout the game which we did more often than not.  There will be a rematch without a doubt.

[DarterBlue2]

On a non-game note, I was a bit surprised by the relatively small attendance on the Osceola side. When I started following high school football in the area back in the late 1990s, Osceola travelled well.

You would have thought that with the district game on the line between teams that were relatively evenly matched, that the visitor side would have been near capacity.

[Ray Icaza]

Even in the 70's when we were playing out of the Spurs arena it was not unusual to see crowds in the 4-6K range for games like this or against a good St. Cloud team.  Our community has completely changed and I can't recall when we have more than 1-2K at home for these types of games.  Many alum have moved out as they don't like the way our county has grown and changed.  Demographics with a heavily represented hispanic population, not necessarily football fans, apartment dwellers, etc.  don't have a strong connection to that tradition.  Not meant to be a complaint, but I'll just label it the Disney Effect.  Feeder program for football is the main driver of what success we have had as participation based on school population would never be enough.