ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. – With accidents clogging the highways, the bus carrying the Ed White football team was delayed on its trip to St. Augustine for it’s second-round playoff meeting.
As it turns out, that might have been the Friday night highlight for the Commanders.
The team with the highest-scoring regular-season output in the history of Florida high school football was stifled by a sharp St. Augustine defense. The Yellow Jackets offense had great field position to work with on the way to a 44-12 running-clock rout of visiting White in the Varsity 4 Game of the Week.
The Yellow Jackets (11-1), the top seed in Region 1-4A, advance to the region final and will host a familiar foe — second-seed Fort Walton Beach Choctawhatchee (11-1), a 27-20 winner against Lake City Columbia, which has met St. Augustine four consecutive postseasons.
Choctawhatchee would be wise to pay close attention to the Yellow Jackets’ defense. There is a little bit of an overlooked feeling on that side of the ball. St. Augustine has a prolific offense of its own, one that scores more than 44 points a game, and that garners a good share of attention.
But the defense has pitched a shutout this season and was allowing less than 19 points a game, with its high total allowed of 27 against a tough Mandarin side.
So, what better proving ground than against the Commanders (9-3), a team averaging almost 53 points a game, one that has topped the 60 mark three times and 70 once?
“We know our offense is good; everyone knows it,” said senior linebacker Maddoxx Lehman, who was in on a sack and had one of his team’s two interceptions. “The defense, we don’t want to miss out as well. We want to show everyone we can play, too. Going up against the highest-scoring team, we took our shot and did pretty good, I’d say.”
That they did. White failed on its first seven third-down attempts, had two first-half interceptions and three drops by receivers to help stunt possessions before the game was halfway finished. The Commanders, whose previous season-low in a game was 41 points scored, managed only 45 total yards in the opening half.
At the same time, St. Augustine was without key defensive back Brandon Whitfield. But that didn’t seem to affect the defensive at all.
“Our scout team really put in the extra work to put in a good showing of their offense,” Lehman said. “They were competing over and over. It engraved it in our brain to where it was second nature when we came on the field.”
Those are sweet words to Yellow Jackets coach Brian Braddock.
“I’m really proud of them,” Braddock said. “We had some guys moved around. They didn’t try to do anything heroic. The kids just did simple stuff at a high level. It’s a good lesson for them. You don’t have to do something extra, something heroic. Just do your job at the highest level possible and if all 11 do, you’ll have a high level of success.”
After a season of playing at a high level of its own, the White offense sputtered. Coach Lawrence Johnson felt that time spent sitting on the bus in traffic, which necessitated a kickoff 28 minutes later than scheduled, might have played a role in that. At the same time, he saw a lot of things he hadn’t seen before from his team.
“We had to hurry up and get loose,” Johnson said. “We just didn’t execute very well. We had a turnover on the very first drive, some uncharacteristic drops, some penalties we hadn’t been getting all year. A combination of those things slowed us down. Just a lot of uncharacteristic mistakes, and St. Augustine was able to capitalize on them.”
St. Augustine started four of its six opening-half possessions on the Commanders’ side of the field, which helped along an already excellent group. But after a three-and-out start, the Yellow Jackets needed a jolt.
Enter Somourian Wingo.
On his team’s second series, the Miami commitment took a short pass over the middle from Brenton James. Wingo shrugged off a defender, had another latch on, and then another and even a third. Wingo still dragged them until one of his linemen came and gave them a shove.
But even then it looked like Wingo would be stopped short of the end zone. The four White defenders in the area had pushed him back. But Wingo broke free one more time, lunged forward and dove into the end zone for a 41-yard catch-and-run.
“That’s just having that dog mentality, having that I-ain’t-going-down mentality,” Wingo said. “Being confident in the work I’ve been putting in in the weight room. That was the weight room all there.
“I came that far, I had to get in there.”
Braddock thought he had seen every spectacular thing Wingo could do. He was wrong.
“What an incredible play,” Braddock said. “He’s such a tremendous football player. Normally I say, when he does stuff, ‘It doesn’t surprise you.’ But even that was pretty remarkable.”
That seemed to be the kick-start for the offense. It was the first of six consecutive possessions in which the Yellow Jackets scored a touchdown.
James ran for one and passed for three more. At the same time, running Durell Preston carried 12 times for 117 yards, with six of those carries going for at least 10 yards, including a 33-yard scoring run.
At the end of the first half, Lehman dropped into coverage from his Jack position and picked off a pass, the first he has ever nabbed at the high school level. That set his team up, holding a 30-0 lead, at White’s 43 with 27.4 seconds left. St. Augustine was at the 7 with 2.7 seconds left, and Braddock decided to forgo the field goal and go for the touchdown.
Julio Santiago came free in the back of the end zone and James hit him. It was a 37-0 and the running clock was triggered.
Credit to White’s players for coming out and not yielding in the second half. But after the Yellow Jackets scored on their second play of the second half, with some starters already on the bench, that was it. The Commanders tacked on two scores but St. Augustine was filtering its reserves into the contest.
A deep playoff run has become the norm for the Yellow Jackets. But for some newcomers to the team, the postseason, even just the atmosphere of a new team, has been an unforgettable experience.
“I’ve had a blast coming over here,” said Lehman, a Menendez transfer. “I don’t regret it at all. It’s amazing.”
St. Augustine 44, Ed White 12
Ed White, 0, 0, 6, 6 — 12
St. Augustine 14, 23, 7, 0 — 44
SA – Somourian Wingo 41 pass from Brenton James (Moses La Prees kick)
SA – James 1 run (La Prees kick)
SA – Durell Preston 33 run (La Prees kick)
SA – Safety, Messiah Pridgen kicked ball out of end zone
SA – Trendell Anderson 7 run (La Prees kick)
SA – Julio Santiago 7 pass from James (La Prees kick)
SA – Anderson 23 pass from James (La Prees kick)
W – Rontrez Loyd 8 run (run failed)
W – Joseph Williams 2 run (kick blocked)
Category: W — SA
First downs: 14 — 13
Rushes-yards: 39-108 — 24-178
Passing: 67 — 132
Comp-Att-Int: 7-16-2 — 8-15-0
Fumbles-lost: 1-0 — 0-0
Penalties-Yards: 8-69 — 7-55
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING — W: Loyd 12-54, Williams 10-50, King Boylston 15-23, Marion Laguerre 1-5, Team 1-(-24). SA: Preston 12-117, Anderson 4-38, James 4-16, Marquis Holliman 3-9, Team 1-(-2).
PASSING — W: Boylston 7-16-67-2. SA: James 8-14-132-0, Bennett Hunt 0-1-0-0.
RECEIVING — W: King Mercer 3-39, Laguerre 3-19, Loyd 1-9. SA: Wingo 2-54, Anderson 3-34, Santiago 2-30, Preston 1-14.