BY BRIAN MCLAUGHLIN (Twitter: @BrianMacWriter)
PALM HARBOR SPORTS
Shout out to the Palm Harbor football team (and Boca Ciega) as the “Boys of Fall” got underway last week on the local field (that’s the way old newspaper accounts used to refer to “home games”, by the way).
Boca Ciega has been a solid Pinellas County program for several seasons and came out with a 33-7 preseason win in Palm Harbor against a young PHU team. But that was a preseason game, it doesn’t count, and it’s in the rearview mirror now.
In a matter of hours, the regular-season games that do count will kick off the 2022 grid year — and they won’t stop until November. On Friday (Aug. 26), Palm Harbor’s Hurricanes will play host to Osceola High out of Seminole (8-3 last year as an independent). The two teams played last year, with Osceola coming away with a 24-10 win in Seminole.
PHU was ahead 10-7 at the half before the 8-win Warriors stormed back last October.
So how does the PHU team look in 2022? It’s a mixture of dynamics, and we break it down below.
2021 FINISH: 4-6 overall
HEAD COACH: Mike Mullaney (5th season, 16-23 record)
TOP RETURNERS (see full starting lineup below): Jr./MLB Gunner Fodor (85 tackles, 6 TFLs); Jr./OL-DL Walker Danneman (starter on OL; 18 tackles, 3 TFL on D); Sr./OL Ken Quach (starter on OL); Soph./DB-QB Will Seibert (38 tackles)
THE BREAKDOWN (see full 2022 schedule below): Last year’s 4-6 team had its highlights. The Hurricanes won three straight games early in the season, four total (including a blowout win over rival Dunedin in the finale) and led at the half of two games it ultimately lost (Osceola and Alonso). There were some games that got out of hand (three or four), but PHU wasn’t far away from a 6-4 year, which would have been the first winning season since the ‘Canes went 6-3 in 2016.
Last year’s wins during that early-season streak were notable, as PHU had only beaten Countryside on the field once before in 14 all-time games, and the wins over St. Petersburg and Hollins were the first in years — 2012 and 2008 respectively. There were some struggles in the second half of the season when the competition picked up considerably.
This year, the team is younger. Much younger, in fact. The experienced players will be expected to battle on both sides of the ball as the coaching staff tries to keep the talented but inexperienced younger group of underclassmen on the junior varsity for more seasoning as a collective. The future is bright at PHU, but this year’s upperclassmen will be blazing a trail for their younger teammates — and they’ll need to gut out the fourth quarter of games. That will be a big question this fall — how will the seasoned veterans handle that depth question?
POSITION BY POSITION (see full lineup below):
Coach Mike Mullaney put the returning starter count as four back on offense and five on defense, with many players being part-time starters because of injuries.
The quarterback position was won by Will Seibert, who made a name for himself last year as a freshman starter in the secondary. He may only be a sophomore, but he’s an experienced sophomore who will undoubtedly be a leader here at PHU for the next 30+ games.
Last year’s quarterbacks — strong-armed Brady Shaffer and fleet-footed Evan Brady — are both gone. Shaffer, who came on strong late in the year when Brady got hurt early, moved to California. Brady transferred locally. Both were underclassmen in 2021.
Gunner Fodor has been a mainstay in the middle of the defense for two years now, and may turn out to be one of the top defensive players in PHU’s 25 seasons of football if he keeps improving. He already has more than 125 career tackles.
On the offensive line, Walker Danneman — who will undoubtedly be on the field more than any other player this fall, according to Mullaney — is back. He will man starting positions on both sides of the ball and is expected to do big things. At 6-foot-4, 250 pounds with two years left to prove himself, don’t be surprised if Danneman is in position to sign collegiately in 2024. Senior Ken Quach — who started with Danneman last year on a solid offensive lineman — is also back.
Last year’s star RB Luke Yoder has transferred, so the team will run the ball by committee this year — so that will be something to watch in 2022. Fodor was a backup weapon to Yoder last year, rushing for 146 yards and 3 TDs in limited action, with a 5.2-yard average per carry.
THE SCHEDULE: Mullaney said the idea with this year’s schedule was to balance it out. There are the usual required games by the state, though that has changed mightily since the old “district game days” of the past 50 years. Then there are the usual rivalries like “the school across the lake” (I.E. – diehard rival East Lake) and Dunedin — these are the games that truly fill the stands on both sides.
Mullaney calls games against East Lake, Dunedin, Tarpon Springs, Countryside etc as “neighborhood games” because of the awareness both schools have of one another. The ‘Canes also play Osceola, and Seminole — also relatively close. These schools above have played football against the ‘Canes since the late 1990s when PHU opened.
Then Mullaney’s philosophy is to play somebody new every once in a while, as the ‘Canes will do with Sunlake out of Land O’Lakes, a relatively new school that is in a similar situation to Palm Harbor in 2022.
PHU hasn’t played Sickles in Tampa since the first two years of the ‘Canes program in the 1990s when both schools opened their doors. That’s hardly considered a rivalry, but it’s a local game. The aforementioned St. Petersburg and Steinbrenner — another Hillsborough team who took it to TBU last year — round out the schedule.
PALM HARBOR 2022 FOOTBALL SCHEDULE
AUG. 26 — (HOME) Osceola, 7:30 pm
SEPT. 2 — (HOME) St. Pete High, 7:30 pm
SEPT. 9 — (AWAY) Sunlake-Land O’Lakes, 7 p.m.
SEPT 16 — (AWAY) Tarpon Springs, 7:30 p.m.
SEPT 23 — (AWAY) Countryside, 7:30 p.m.
SEPT 30 — (HOME) Sickles, 7:30 p.m.
OCT 7 — open week
OCT 14 — (AWAY) Steinbrenner-Lutz, 7:30 p.m.
OCT 21 — (AWAY) Seminole, 7:30 p.m.
OCT 28 — (AWAY) East Lake, 7:30 p.m.
NOV 4 — (HOME) Dunedin, 7:30 p.m.
THE STAFF: Mike Mullaney (head coach and off. coordinator), Matt Lepain (defensive coordinator); Jonathan Adkins (assistant), Nick Mazzoni (assistant), Randy Homa (assistant), Richard Bailey (assistant); Eugene Davis (assistant)
THE QUOTE: “The last few years we’ve brought up younger kids to fill in particular spots when we had a kid or two who had the ability to fit in there. Last year we probably brought up more kids to play varsity minutes than we wanted, but we didn’t have depth so we needed to. This year, we’re really trying to make a strong effort to keep the younger kids down. There may be a freshman or two who plays varsity, but we’re trying to build that younger group as a unit working together. So yes, we could use some more bodies on varsity, but we want to have more success at the JV level and that will put pressure on the older players to be on the field longer.” — Head coach Mike Mullaney
THE 2022 PALM HARBOR FOOTBALL STARTING LINEUP (PRESEASON LOOK)
SPEAKING TO THE TEAM: It’s special to represent your school and community in football, sports in general, academically – you name it. You’re doing it. Your school cares, your classmates care – and when your season is done later this year? You can turn around and support them when they’re doing something to represent your high school. That’s the glory of HS support.
Beginning next week: That big tackle by a sophomore? That big run by a senior who has busted his rear end for years and never gotten a chance until 2022? That precision block by a center or guard who never cared about getting attention … only to spring a good buddy and teammate in the backfield who gets all the attention?
That’s what matters.
High school football has been going on in Pinellas County for more than a century (paging St. Pete High), and you all are kicking off 2022. Your father may have played, maybe your grandfather — heck, the great-grandpa you don’t even know the name of could have suited up in a leather helmet.
None of you will ever forget this fall, and the men who played before you haven’t forgotten their days getting to do this. You won’t … ever … forget it.
It begins this week when it counts. So don’t ever go half-ass, because you’ll remember that, too.
Have a good 2022, PHU boys of fall.
Great article… excited to see what The U does this year on Varsity and JV.
Appreciate it JC. Palm Harbor is a normal school that doesn’t recruit 20 new kids each year to fill out its roster. You have to love that! They play the boys who live around here, so its hard not to have a soft spot for that. This program has good things ahead of it, and from the seniors to the freshmen, whatever success happens down the line — sooner or later — will be a credit to the entire roster who is out there now, because it may not be easy this year as the program is transitioning. They’ll have to be tough but I’ll put my bet on them being exactly that.