Slippery when wet: Flagler Palm Coast sloshes its way to 7-2 victory over Mainland

The Buccaneers fell to 0-3, while the Bulldogs improved to 2-0.

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Flagler Palm Coast senior Colby Cronk has been waiting two years to get another crack at beating Mainland. Quarterback Hayden Hayes has been waiting a lifetime.

“I've been trying to beat them for too long,” said Hayes who transferred from Seabreeze during the summer. “It’s been one of my goals since I was a kid. They’ve always been a rival, even through Pop Warner days.”

On a soggy, sloppy, slippery Bulldogs field, Hayes scored the only touchdown of the game to lift FPC to a 7-2 victory over the Buccaneers on Friday, Sept. 6.

Several days of relentless rain drenched the field. On Wednesday, Sept. 5, FPC administrators decided to move the game up a day to Thursday, but after a full day of rain, they moved it back to Friday. A lightning delay pushed kickoff from a scheduled 7 p.m. start to 8:15.

“Obviously, it was a real messy game,” Bulldogs coach Daniel Fish said. “In those situations you're just proud of your kids for overcoming the adversity.”

Hayes, a senior, said beating Mainland for the first time was one of his goals this season.

He scored on a 7-yard run with 1:30 left in the first half to give FPC a 7-2 lead. The play call was a pass, but catches were tough to come by with a soaking wet football. In fact, both teams had trouble with their shotgun snaps with the slippery ball often darting left or right or whizzing over the quarterbacks’ heads.

On this play, Hayes was given the green light to run.

“It was supposed to be a pass, a lot of reads to go through, but I didn’t love it with the rain conditions,” he said. “So, I saw green grass and I scored. (Offensive coordinator Jake Medlock) did a great job giving me the keys, giving me control. He said, ‘If you see it, just go, pull the trigger.’ And once I saw nobody between me and the goal line, I knew I was getting it.”

Neither team could sustain a drive in the second half. With 4:56 left in the game, Grant Winkler, playing in his first game since last season, intercepted a pass. Mainland got the ball back one more time, but defensive lineman Stacy Mitchell tackled running back Kwasie Kwaku in the backfield on fourth down with 1:21 remaining and the Bulldogs (2-0) ran out the clock. 

I've been trying to beat them for too long. It’s been one of my goals since I was a kid.”
— HAYDEN HAYES, FPC quarterback

“I was so ecstatic, I was so happy,” Cronk said of Mitchell’s game-clinching tackle. “They put Kwasie Kwaku in the backfield (to take a direct snap), so something funky was going on. So I went up field, (Kwaku) took the B Gap and then Stacy was right there and tackled him.

“I love it,” Cronk said. “My sophomore year, I had a bad taste in my mouth when we lost to them 22-16. I was really mad after that game. We weren't able to play last year and I was a little bit (disappointed), because they were state champions, and I wanted to see what we could have done. But that's in the past.”

Cronk had 3.5 sacks. Sophomore Lucas Sirahaj intercepted his third pass of the young season early in the second quarter. And running back Marcus Mitchell ran for 99 yards on 23 carries.

“It was a great performance by the guys,” Fish said. “I’m just really proud of the resiliency. We stayed together, we didn't talk trash, we didn’t get personal foul penalties. We focused on what mattered and we just got a great team win. We did great things on defense all night long. They controlled the field position, but we were able to overcome that and make plays when it mattered the most.”

The Bucs, who fell to 0-3 for the first time in 31 years, tackled Marcus Mitchell in the end zone for a safety to take a 2-0 lead midway through the second quarter. But Mainland couldn’t sustain a drive in the rainy conditions.

“Listen, 0-3 or not, Mainland is a very talented team," Fish said. "They're well-coached. They've hit a lot of adversity, but they fought really hard. They had plenty of chances. We just made more plays than they did. Those guys are still going to make the playoffs.”

Mainland coach Jerrime Bell said the Bucs committed too many penalties.

“We’ve got to eliminate the penalties. That’s been our problem since the spring,” he said. “They're trying to do too much. Everyone’s trying to make the hero block and then we get a hold. Everybody’s trying to be the hero. We're just trying to do too much.”

Bell said the Bucs wanted to play at a quicker tempo, but the officials kept switching the wet balls out, slowing down the pace.

Hayes said because of the muddy field he had to switch his cleats out after halftime for the first time in his football career. Cronk said the sidelines “were just straight mud. It was definitely hard to run in that part of the field.”

Mainland will try to snap its losing streak on Friday, Sept. 13, in a road game against Jacksonville Raines (3-0), while FPC will try to remain undefeated in a home game against Lake Brantley (1-2). More rain was expected in Flagler County leading up the game. 

“We'll practice snapping the ball in the rain this week,” Fish said.

 

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