Palm Harbor challenged itself this year on the front end of its non-district schedule — and that challenge has forced this young team to learn quickly. As PHU head coach Mike Mullaney said this week, and I’m paraphrasing: This young team has been thrown in the deep end of the pool and has been forced to quickly learn how to swim.
Friday night, in the program’s first day on Hurricanes Stadium field since its spring game win over Tarpon Springs in May, the team got its first win of the year over an undefeated St. Petersburg HS team, 23-3.
Granted, St. Petersburg High was playing without immensely talented QB Jeffery Jones, which changed the game. He had to sit out the game because of two unsportsmanlike penalties his last time out. Jones told PalmHarborSports via text on Friday that he regretted his actions. Jones has accounted for more than 4,500 career rushing yards in his career in the single-wing St. Pete offense, as well as throwing for more than 1,900 more yards. He’s a touchdown dynamo.
Jones said he really wanted to play against PHU because the games have been good all four years he’s played on varsity, but he’d never won — even though his team has been a playoff program the past two years and likely will be again in 2024.
PHU hasn’t lost to SPHS since 2013.
PHU junior wide receiver Jake Rennert caught the first two touchdowns of the game from senior quarterback Will Seibert. Rennert deflected praise though to the other side of the ball.
“The defense played lights out and gave us every opportunity to get on the field,” Rennert told PalmHarborSports following the win. “It was just great. The team was pumped up and ready to go. We were also running the ball effectively at the end of the game. The O-line, Will (Seibert) had good throws, and Jaxon Wilson was running it … We were just glad to play at home. After the game the team was happy and excited.”
Wilson scored the 4th quarter touchdown and helped control the clock in the second half, and placekicker Mitchell Stricker added a field goal early in the game to give the ‘Canes their points.
When it came to finding out the news about the absence of Pinellas County’s top offensive player, Jones, PHU senior captain and two-way starting lineman Zach Horner said he had an awareness earlier than most. Horner originally lived in southern Pinellas and one of his childhood friends plays for SPHS and he asked his buddy if Jones was out. His buddy confirmed.
But Horner swears it would still have been a “W” even if Jones has played. And he’s confident about the rest of 2024 now that his team is finally back to full strength after injuries. He was joined this week full time by fellow O-linemen Hayden Turley and Braden Dam, as well as Brady Messick on both sides of the ball. And QB Seibert was back after a one-week absence.
“Honestly? It really didn’t change our mentality (that Jones was out),” Horner told PalmHarborSports. “His backup was also still super fast and shifty. He’s pretty damned good, but even if they’d had him I think we would have done pretty good handling him.”
The defense did stuff a very good St. Petersburg team many times. St. Pete sophomore Zyquavion Williams is also very talented and he broke one or two decent-length plays, but in general the PHU defense stuffed the Green Devils. There were 15 negative-yardage plays for the ‘Canes.
“The defense did a great job the entire night,” Mullaney said. “They had a difficult time picking up our blitzes. Our defensive line was strong up front against the run and our linebackers did a great job tackling.
“Offensively we did exactly what the game plan was going into the game. We wanted to work the perimeter early in the game to tire them out and then run right at them in the second half. We did enough in the passing game to keep them off balance.”
Overall it was a key win early in the 2024 season. Now the program heads to Countryside (0-4) in Clearwater next week to try to up PHU’s record to 2-3 on the year after dropping the first three games to teams that stand 8-3 combined so far.
“We were just super excited,” Horner said. “After that final second, I just did a handstand on the sidelines. We’re going to keep getting better every week and I think we’re going to go undefeated the rest of the season. Our biggest thing is confidence. Beating an undefeated team is a huge confidence builder … it’s not going to be easy, we have some tough teams left, but we can beat them.”
Sophomore Grahm Pitcock had the biggest play of his young career when the DB picked off a St. Pete pass on the Green Devils’ first play, and fellow junior DB Maddox Marquez did the same — making his biggest play on varsity so far with a fumble recovery. Jr. lineman Karter Allen posted an incredible 5 TFLs and 11 tackles, while Jr./LB Ryan Fuelling had 10 tackles and TFLs. Soph./LB Logan Rapp had 8 tackles and 2 TFLs.
