Plant City is on a tear this season, and there are plenty of reasons for that. Head coach Robert Paxia and the coaching staff have the Raiders playing well on offense, defense and special teams.
And any doubts Plant City fans may have had about the team giving a sophomore running back the starting job this season have been erased.
At the moment, Treshaun Ward’s numbers pop off of the stat sheet: 538 rushing yards and seven touchdowns on 47 carries, good for 11.4 yards per attempt. If anyone was expecting this to happen before the season, it wasn’t Ward.
“I thought I was fixing to start off slow,” Ward says.
Ward was responsible for four of the team’s seven touchdowns in its 50-5 win against Strawberry Crest Friday, Sept. 16. Three came on the ground, going with his 101 yards and 11 touches, and one came on the opening kickoff of the second half — his last play before getting taken out for the rest of the game to stay fresh.
While Crest and Brandon aren’t the toughest tests of a football player’s true skill, it’s hard to argue against Ward’s talent when looking at his season-opening performance against Armwood: 169 yards and two touchdowns scored on 16 attempts.
Ward currently has an offer from East Carolina, but his dream school is Clemson. The Tigers’ lead back, Wayne Gallman, is a player after whom Ward likes to model his own game.
Although much of Ward’s work has happened beyond the front lines, he knows exactly who he should credit for making his stellar start possible.
“My line is contributing to my yards and all that,” Ward says. “It’s teamwork.”
EAST BAY
For the first three weeks of the season, the East Bay Indians looked solid: they jumped out to a 3-0 start, scoring no fewer than 24 points in each game.
Friday, Sept. 16, Durant went to Gibsonton and put the clamps on that offense. After the teams went into the locker room for halftime — extended by an hour and one half, thanks to bad weather — the Cougars made all the right adjustments and scored 35 unanswered points, securing a 38-3 win.
East Bay finished the game with 175 rushing yards between six runners, with quarterback Tanner Morris’ 50 yards leading the way. Lead back Anthony Hollingshed was held to just 31 yards on 11 carries — good for just 2.9 yards per touch.
More good news for Plant City is that Durant’s offense beat East Bay in every way. Carlton Potter threw for 241 yards and two touchdowns, getting both Brandon and Cameron Myers over 100 yards with a touchdown apiece. Cameron Myers also tore it up on the ground, rushing for 147 yards and two scores.
“It looks like they’re pretty good, but I’ve got to do my thing, and I know my line will help me do something,” Ward says.
Plant City has the talent to replicate or even surpass that 38-3 score, but it still can’t afford to sleep on the Indians.
“We’ve got to play as a team, and we’ve got to keep being positive,” Ward says.
Contact Justin Kline at jkline@plantcityobserver.com.