17-0 Start was Highlight of Lely's Preview Game

Everything that’s good about high school football was on display Friday night at Trojan Stadium as Lely went up 17-0 on visiting Gulf Coast.

The Lely band was playing loudly, the Go Lely, Go Lely, Go cheer rang from the crowded bleachers. Lely head coach J.J. Everage’s thunder and lightning running attack was ripping through the Gulf Coast defense just like he imagined it could. His athletic defense was making plays all over the field. Ah, what a first quarter it was for the Lely Trojans.

But then county rival Gulf Coast, and their elusive, strong-armed quarterback Konner Barrett, turned the tables, scoring 35 unanswered points to take a 35-17 win in the preview game for both teams.

“This was just a scrimmage,” Everage said. "It doesn’t count against your record. Doesn’t affect you playoff run or anything like that. But it’s a Collier County school and you want to win those.

“Those first couple drives of the game were pretty nice,” Everage said. "We came out and dominated.”

Everage believes in playing his best athletes both ways, rather than having separate starters on offense and defense. The hot, humid evening was taking its toll on his two-way starters.

"We’re starting a lot of new players on both sides of the ball who haven’t played both ways,” Everage said. “You saw a lot of guys cramping up. They weren’t used to the heat. I think that played a big role. That and our youth and inexperience.”

Everage was happy with how his defense performed, prior to fatigue setting in.

“Defensively we played pretty well,” he said. "We just made some simple mistakes. Again, the attrition factor took over. We got tired. They were worn out. The heat, the cramps took over.”

Gulf Coast quarterback Barrett also took over, with his arm and his legs.

"I’ve tried to tell them for the past two weeks how good this Gulf Coast quarterback is,” Everage said. "I told them, ’That’s who you’ve got to stop. That’s the guy.' He’s a great runner. You can’t let him out of the pocket. He’s strong. He’s got a great arm.”

Barrett ran for 131 yards and passed for 77 yards and two touchdowns.

In addition to exhaustion, the Trojans were victimized by several big plays. A 75-yard kickoff return gave Gulf Coast their first score with 8:22 left in the first quarter. After booming his first two kickoffs out of the end zone, Lely’s strong-legged kicker, Jonathan Hernandez, came up a little short on his third kickoff.

"We kicked the ball out of the end zone the first two times,” Everage said. "You could say that on our third kickoff our young guy’s kind of jogged down and Gulf Coast returned the kickoff for a touchdown. I think that’s when the momentum changed.”

Another kicking game error set up a Gulf Coast score when Hernandez, who is also Lely’s punter, had to jump high to reel in a high snap. Hernandez found himself surrounded by Sharks and decided to try to run for the first down. Instead, he came up short and Gulf Coast took over deep in Lely territory.

“We had the bad snap,” Everage said, "never could get things clicking again offensively. They had all the momentum and we just got worn out.”

Gulf Coast went up 28-17 with 6:51 left in the third quarter when Christopher Jimenez leaped high in the air at the Lely 10 to block Lely quarterback Brian Bachmann’s pass. The ball miraculously bounced right back into Jimenez’s hands, and he trotted into the end zone.

Lely’s regular season starts next week when they travel to Bishop Verot on Friday, August 27, at 7:00 PM. Gulf Coast opens with Naples.