If any word can be used to describe the 2017 Plant City Dolphins Midgets football team, it’s “hungry.”
Ever since the 2016 season came to a close at the Tri-County Youth Football and Cheerleading Conference’s annual Superbowl championship game, the undefeated Midgets have been focused on the next task at hand — winning in 2017. They’ll get their chance to do just that at noon on Saturday against the Brandon Cowboys.
Many of the players were members of the Dolphins’ Pee Wee squad last year, which also finished the regular season without a loss. That team’s good fortune ran out in the 2016 Superbowl, though, as the Lakeland Eagles were able to stay one step ahead and pick up a 24-20 win.
When the players moved up to the Midgets division this year, coaches said, they didn’t forget that loss.
“They’re still hungry for that Superbowl, so it’s a lot easier to teach those guys because they still have that drive, that hunger,” assistant coach John Broome said. “They know what it takes to get there.”
Broome, who is hoping to win his fifth consecutive Superbowl within the Dolphins organization, said the Midgets’ willingness to work through anything is crucial to this group’s ongoing success.
After the 2016 Midgets captured the Superbowl championship, many of those players moved on to the Junior Varsity team. They left head coach Marcus Springfield’s 2017 group with a three-game winning streak to build on, and the current players didn’t disappoint — the 2017 Midgets are riding a 15-game win streak.
“Stingy defense, explosive offense,” Springfield said. “You can’t just put a finger on us. We’re versatile. Special teams, as well.”
The offensive and defensive units do share a goal: to control the line of scrimmage.
“My old high school coach told us, ‘We’re gonna dance with who we came with,’” Springfield said. “We came this far in the trenches and that’s pretty much how we win — in the trenches.”
But if any one unit stands out from the pack, it’s a 5-3 defense that has given up just two touchdowns all season. It was the key to the Dolphins’ 6-0 win over the Pinecrest Pilots in a Nov. 4 battle between the division’s two unbeaten teams.
It can be easy for athletes on long winning streaks to get complacent, relax too much and make mistakes. With that in mind, the Midgets team has two orders of business.
Broome and Springfield both preach about “trusting the process.” Broome said that because the players, coaches and everyone else involved with the program have trusted the process of hard work rather than taking shortcuts and cutting corners here and there, the group has learned more about what it means to fight adversity and eventually be successful on the field.
“Now we’re getting the results,” Broome said.
The coaches are also big on setting goals to keep the kids so focused on what they need to do, no one is getting a big ego about winning 15 in a row. Springfield said he and his staff keep the intensity up and always raise the bar, though the team takes things one game at a time.
“We’ve got to keep the goal on the Superbowl,” Springfield said.