St. Johns Fl- The #1 seed in Class 4S Bartram Trail (10-0) faced off against #8 seeded Flagler Palm Coast (4-6). The Bears came into the contest undefeated, boasting some of the top players in high school football including 4-star Sharif Denson. The Bulldogs however, were forced to forfeit 4 games due to an ineligable player. Flagler Palm Coast was actually an 8-2 team with talented players like DJ Murray who we saw first hand earlier this year in their matchup against Ponte Vedra. So the record shouldn’t have fooled anyone, as Flagler Palm Coast showed early on when the Bulldogs bit the Bears with quick scores.
On the first drive of the game, Flagler Palm Coast would score when junior quarterback DJ Murray followed his blockers around the left side, staying in bounds for the score. The Bulldogs led 7-0 in the first quarter.
Murray would show off his talents again, when at the end of the first quarter he’d elude tacklers going 65-yards for a Bulldog touchdown to close out the first quarter. For Murray and Flagler Palm Coast, it was a crazy first quarter amassing over100-yards rushing. The second touchdown set up by their defense as Benjamin Laurore intercepted a Bartram pass to thwart a drive as the score read 14-0 after one quarter.
After a Bartram field goal put them on the board 14-3, the Bears defense led by Sharif Denson, Arion Stith, and Connor Hemingway would make plays to stop the Flagler Palm Coast drive. This paved the way for Bartram to put together a nice drive captained by quarterback Ryan Trujillo. It would end with a Laython Biddle touchdown run, pulling the Bears even closer 14-10. A Liam Padrom field goal saw the lead narrow even more going into halftime 14-13 Bartram.
At halftime, Bartram came out like a new and improved team, as the Bears rattled off 37 unanswered points in the second half. It began with a touchdown by Taylor Rhodes to make the score 20-14. Next, a recovered botched kickoff by Bartram would lead to a touchdown by running back Willie Bryant making the score 27-14 in the 3rd quarter.
After another stop on defense, the Bears offense quickly moved down the field to the end zone with a long run from Arthur Lewis of 40-yards. The run would set up another touchdown by Biddle from 1-yard out extended the lead to 34-14.
However the freshman Lewis would get another shot at the end-zone when Bartram stopped Flagler Palm Coast again on 4th down. Padron would add a field goal to make it 37-14 going into the 4th quarter. Then Lewis would get the call and the carry, careening off defenders into the end zone for a score.
Bartram would go on to score 50-points for the fourth time this year, as Shaun Mcelroy tumbled into the endzone for Bartram’s 37th unanswered point. The Bears would take home the victory 50-20.
Bartram (11-0) will now welcome a familiar rival to their place in the next round as Creekside (9-2) will matchup against them in round 2. Creekside defeated Navarre 47-20 to advance in the Class 4S playoffs.
Said Head Coach Darrell Sutherland after the game, “great response today, proud of you guys, it would’ve been easy to start doubting yourselves or doubting each other, but you didn’t do that, you did just what I said in devotion, you believed in each other, you believed in your training, and now you earned another week, we get to practice Monday”.
