Plant City clinches district title

By Friday night’s end, the Plant City Raiders could have their “green cake” and eat it, too.

The cake is a recipe of principal Susan Sullivan’s that gets baked for the players to snack on for special wins — wins like the 24-21 thriller over Tampa Bay Tech that prevented a 7A-District 9 three-peat for the Titans, guaranteed the Raiders a playoff spot and secured their hosting privileges in the regional tournament with a Nov. 2 bye week to prepare. It's the Raiders' first district title win since the 2015 season.

Plant City couldn’t have asked for a better way to end its 2018 regular season, though it didn’t come easy.

“We were beating ourselves,” head coach James Booth said. “We gave them that first touchdown… we turned the ball over on back-to-back plays. We were offsides on an onside kick. We killed ourselves. But (the players) knew that if we continued to play our style of football, we’d come out on top.”

Friday’s game was defined by the big play, though they mostly came in the first half.

Treshaun Ward scored the game’s first touchdown early in the first quarter with a 65-yard dash to the end zone. The Raiders tied things up at 5:03 in the quarter when Mario Williams caught a pass from Braxton Plunk and ran 60 yards for a shifty score of his own. The Raiders took a 14-7 lead just under a minute into the second quarter on Chris Wilson’s 37-yard catch-and-run touchdown, and in almost exactly four minutes Tech tied it at 14-14 by forcing Plunk to fumble while scrambling and scooping up the rock to run it in untouched from the PCHS 37-yard line. Williams capitalized on a huge Zamir’ Knighten run by catching a 33-yard pass from Plunk to put the Raiders ahead, 21-14, with 43 seconds left in the half — and that was answered quickly as Ward returned the kickoff to the PCHS 6-yard line, setting up Xavier Freeman’s six-yard run past the goal line and the 21-21 tie that remained through the half.

The second half was more of a defensive battle, but Knighten kept chipping away at the Titans’ stop unit and was able to be a catalyst for the Raiders’ success with well over 100 rushing yards for the game.

There were four field goal attempts in the second half — two for each team. Three were crucial to the outcome of the game because, in one way or another, they each favored Plant City. 

First, Chris Rodriguez missed a 36-yarder at 8:42 in the third quarter after Knighten helped PCHS advance to the Tech red zone. Two minutes later, Rodriguez made the most of his second chance by nailing the 26-yarder that ended up being the last go-ahead score his team needed.

Third, shortly after Ward left the game with a leg injury and re-entered to help the offense, Tech drove to the Plant City 15 and decided to try a field goal rather than test the stingy Raiders’ defense. Tyreke Harrison blocked the kick, giving Plant City the ball back with 4:44 to play.

Lastly, after forcing Plant City to punt with just over two and a half minutes left in the game, Tech drove from their own 43 into deep Plant City territory, couldn’t run or pass into the end zone and tried a fourth-down field goal attempt with about 10 seconds left to play. It came up short, sending the PCHS bench into a frenzy. The next thing anyone knew, Plunk’s knee touched the turf and Booth practically flew onto the field, soaking wet from the contents of the team’s cooler and overcome with joy.

"I'm so proud of our senior class, the leadership that they've had all season," Booth said. "They've faced a lot of adversity. Coaching changes, injuries, so much stuff happened this year and through the course of their high school careers. I'm so happy for them that we got to go out on top."

The Raiders may not know who they’ll host in two weeks, but they do know their next bite of victory “green cake” will be the sweetest they’ve had in years.