There wasn’t a whole lot of experience returning with this young Palm Harbor team when the 2022 season began. The idea was to keep the young core of budding talent on junior varsity and let them build their chemistry — and let the upperclassmen battle it out on behalf of their school.
Well … so far so good for those upperclassmen and experienced underclassmen. They are doing their jobs.
Through three weeks, this is exactly what the coaching staff had hoped for. On Friday night PHU won its second straight game, this time on the road — beating Sunlake of Land O’Lakes 13-10. And the Hurricanes (2-1 record) are only three points away from being 3-0 when it comes to the Osceola game in week one (23-20 loss).
“We will take it,” PHU head coach Mike Mullaney told PalmHarborSports.com after the win. “It was very sloppy, but when we needed to make plays to win the game? We did. We can’t have the type of penalties that we had tonight. It seemed like every time we had the momentum and were about to score? We had a big play called back.”
He’s right, no question. That’s exactly what young clubs do.
Mistakes are expected of young clubs. Wins aren’t.
Mullaney made it very clear before the season that the limited older guys in the program were going to have to tough it out. They would need to play both ways.
Again, so far so good.
Perfect? Hardly. Anybody who knows football knows PHU probably could have run away with Friday night’s game.
Sunlake — a relatively new program PHU has never faced before — is not an established program. This week it fired it’s head coach (former Bethune-Cookman QB Allen Suber) and one would have thought the Seahawks would be in disarray. While SL did have it’s issues, it didn’t seem like it was in utter chaos — that’s worth mentioning.
On PHU’s first offensive play, the ‘Canes’ best player — Gunner Fodor (who are we kidding, it’s already clear he is) — rolled to his right after a handoff from QB Will Seibert and fired a perfect halfback pass to Mason Kryk that went for 55 yards down to the 10-yard line of SL. Next play? Fodor smashed it in from 10 yards out for a TD. This is how this guy works. On either side of the ball, he’s effective.
“Gunner is just a pure football player,” Mullaney said. “He has a passion for the game and has improved our defense tremendously. Offensively he does a good job of finding those cut-back lanes that produce big plays.”
Immediately? It seemed like this would be the tone that continued all game long for PHU, just 40 minutes from home. Could PHU run away with this? It certainly seemed like it.
To Sunlake’s credit, it didn’t fold in like one would have imagined for a program that had its third head coach in less than 10 months.
Palm Harbor didn’t seize on several opportunities immediately after. As Mullaney said, untimely penalties were a problem. The young ‘Canes were far from home, had a sparse crowd in a rain-saturated night — as would be expected. They didn’t have the energy that exists back home with the student body (no excuses next week at Tarpon!). Young teams respond this way all the time.
But big plays came.
My take? I feel like junior running back Mykehl Boebert introduced himself to the Tampa Bay HS football universe on Friday night. He’d been a key factor the first two weeks, but it was clear — especially in the first half (70 yards rushing, giving Fodor a breather) — that is a key part of what’s going to transpire with PHU going forward.
Yes, everybody in the PHU world who knows this team knows Fodor can play ball — but, can a guy like this play like, 500 plays a game? Obviously that’s not a good idea, and Fodor is a natural on the defensive side of the ball. He needs a break.
The only problem? When Fodor totes the ball? He hands bruises out to the opponent like they’re business cards — and he gets first downs. And that happened in the second half. But Friday night? Boebert did the same behind a great O-line, several times. Boebert has already proven he can alleviate pressure off of Fodor.
The passing game is still coming around, so having several good running options is absolutely critical. But it’s worth mentioning that while QB Seibert is still getting acclimated to the position (and healed up), this guy can make things happen with his legs, too.
Speaking of Boebert, in the second half he would score on a short run that would prove to be the game-winning touchdown.
And on defense, Soph. Brady Messick and Jr. Matt Gunn made key plays to help preserve the road win. Messick buried the Sunlake QB for a big-time sack in the fourth quarter, and Gunn nearly picked off a pass late in the game when Sunlake tried to rally. They were only two of Coach Lepain’s standouts on D.
This win was sloppy, it was sluggish – literally. Sometimes it was ugly, it wasn’t textbook by any stretch. But it was also September, and there’s no template for September HS football. These kids haven’t done this before, they’re learning. And they emerged from a road trip with a win.
That’s a big deal.
“Overall? I’m proud of our team,” Mullaney said. “We still have a long way to go, but I love the fight of this team.”
This is worth mentioning: Next week’s opponent up the street? Tarpon Springs? The Spongers lost by 27 tonight to Osceola (3 pt loss for PHU) and were blown out in week one by St. Pete High (PHU win last week). Our team is young, and it’s on the road next Friday against a close rival — don’t count your chickens: But this is an opportunity.
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BMAC’S TAKE — AND IT’S MY BLOG, SO I CAN DO THIS:
Three points away from 3-0 in 2022? At PHU? No way I would have ever thought that would be the case with this much inexperience within the PHU program. Again, my take? Nobody else’s? I’ve gotten the feeling that PHU has a very, very bright future.
Just a thought (and the coaches are going to hate me for this, but I’m going to say it — and Mullaney and Lepain were a part of the best span of PHU football roughly 10 yrs ago):
The best of this very early quarter-century era of PHU football is about to happen in the next half decade. As long as local Pinellas schools don’t try to poach the talent that is emerging, and THAT talent doesn’t fall for it (don’t!).
And if you’re an outsider/poacher reading this, and you try to poach PHU talent — well, you apparently can’t coach up the talent that arrives on your campus naturally, can you? I’ve covered HS football since the early 1990s and I’ve talked to legendary coaches who said they had to deal with this sort of crap — even 50 yrs ago. I guess it never changes.
Right? Can you coach up your own home-grown talent and not need to steal others’? Can you? You KNOW you’re reading this, area rivals. You are! Why don’t you stay away for a few yrs and see what happens?
My take to the PHU kids (and parents)? Why go somewhere else — farther away — when you can do something unique and special together right up the street from where you grew up?
With the kids you went to elementary school with? It’s the same thing we deal with in youth soccer (another discussion topic)
PS/LAST THING: If I hear an announcer refer to Fodor as “Fedora” again … you know, like the hat? I’ll blow a gasket. Just wow.
That’s what I’m talk’n about!