Back in the day, Plant City/Manatee was considered a legitimate football rivalry with legitimate district championship stakes. Though those days are long gone as districts and regions have reshuffled and both teams now spend much more time playing opponents closer to home, local fans will get a blast from the past this week thanks to COVID-19.
The Lakeland Dreadnaughts were forced to cancel their first two games of the 2020 season — which included what would have been this Friday’s game against the Raiders — and Plant City suddenly needed an opponent for this week. It didn’t take long for the Manatee Hurricanes to agree to come back to town for the first time in a long time: Plant City and Manatee have not played each other since before many of the players on both rosters, if not all of them, were born.
One person who does remember the old Plant City/Manatee games is PCHS head coach James Booth, who will now get to say he’s been on both sides of that battle. Booth was a wide receiver for Manatee in the late 1990s and played against the Raiders.
Before coming to Plant City in 2017, Booth was Manatee’s offensive coordinator for three seasons and helped the program win 28 games and make three playoff appearances during that time. Wide receivers coach Anthony Rozier also joined Booth in the move from Manatee to Plant City.
Plant City’s first game went exactly as the team hoped it would. The Raiders blew out Riverview, 44-7, in a game where all of the scoring happened in the first half and the backups got plenty of reps in the second.
Plant City’s new-look offense was extremely effective. Nick Felice only threw three passes before the backups came in, but he completed two of them for 115 yards and two touchdowns. Starting running back Romello Jones picked up 98 yards and a score on a team-high seven carries, and backup Reggie Bush ran the ball four times for exactly 100 yards and a touchdown. Senior wideout Jose Rodriguez caught a 41-yard touchdown pass from junior backup Carson Mohler and third-string quarterback Clinton Danzey led the quarterbacks with both five completions and eight attempts.
Returning receivers Mario Williams and Reagan Ealy picked up right where they left off. Williams finished the game with two kick returns for 107 yards, two catches for 115 yards and two touchdowns, as well as two successful two-point conversions (one throwing to Aramoni Rhone, one running) and one touchdown coming from a 65-yard double pass to a wide-open Ealy. Ealy finished with two catches for 74 yards and that touchdown.
So Booth and the Raiders will have at least one advantage over Manatee tonight: that momentum. This will be Manatee’s first game of the 2020 season and the Hurricanes will also not have head coach Yusuf Shakir, who in April was hit with an eight-game suspension for recruiting. Shakir led Manatee to the Class 7A regional championship game last year, where the Hurricanes suffered a 34-17 loss to Venice.
Just a reminder for those of you who can’t make it to any of your schools’ games: you can watch your schools’ live-streamed broadcasts of football and other sports on NFHSNetwork.com if you have a subscription.
OTHER GAMES TO WATCH
DURANT
@ Bloomingdale, 7:30 p.m. Thursday
Last week, the Durant Cougars took the Newsome Wolves to overtime in the Alafia River Rivalry game but lost, 13-10.
Things don’t get any easier this week, as the Cougars (0-1) will travel to Bloomingdale (1-0) one week after the Bulls used a big second half to upset Armwood (0-1) at home, 15-14. Bloomingdale’s defense and special teams accounted for both of the Bulls’ touchdowns, and the Cougars will also square off against a familiar face in star wideout Agiye Hall — who started his high school football career with Durant.
STRAWBERRY CREST
@ Kathleen, 7:30 p.m. Friday
Last week, the Strawberry Crest Chargers battled with King and held a lead for most of the game, but a fourth-quarter Lions field goal put the home team on top and sent Crest back to Dover with a 10-8 loss.
The Chargers will try to make up for that this week at Kathleen against a Red Devils team that just ended up on the winning end of a 42-40 barnburner with Ridge Community. Both teams combined to score 68 of their 82 points in the first half and held a 34-34 tie heading into the locker room. Neither scored again until the fourth quarter, when Kathleen outscored Ridge 8-6.