ST. PETERSBURG — For a half, Clearwater Central Catholic looked like its own worst opponent. Then the Marauders remembered who they were.
After falling behind early on a fumble and an interception, CCC clamped down on defense, steadied its offense and scored four touchdowns on five second-half possessions to pull away from host St. Petersburg Catholic 35-11 on Sept. 18.
The win kept the Marauders unbeaten at 4-0. The Barons fell to 2-3.
“(The Barons) did some great things in the first half,” CCC coach Chris Harvey said. “The thing about our team is we don’t play well when we play emotional. When we allow the situation, the game or the opponent to get the best of us, we don’t always play with that discipline that we need to play the type of football that we play.”
Maybe it was emotion undoing discipline. Maybe it was some unexpected looks from the Barons’ defense. Whatever the reason, the Marauders sputtered on offense early, and St. Petersburg Catholic made them pay.
Immediately after Lee Gordon recovered a CCC fumble in Marauders’ territory, Barons quarterback Chase Burrill hit a streaking Elijah Shorter in stride behind the defense for a 45-yard touchdown. Late in the first quarter, junior Jeremiecio Robinson intercepted a CCC pass, setting up Dominic McAnally’s 32-yard field goal that gave SPC an 11-7 lead early in the second quarter.
“At halftime, we were told to pretty much just play CCC football,” senior quarterback Khayse Barrett said. “We weren’t playing CCC football in the first half. That’s all it is.”
Barrett sprained his ankle late in the first half, bringing backup Sean Hickey into the game. The Marauders rotated the two in the second half, at times keeping both on the field with a taped-up Barrett lined up at halfback, and the offense began to click.
“If there’s a thing we have to focus on as a team, it’s being able to protect the football,” Harvey said. “Second half, we sort of put the onus on the offensive line.”
The line of senior Jaxson Edds and underclassmen Rajee Postell, Jordon Steijger and Matthew Miller answered.
Melvon Wallace, a junior who transferred from Lakewood, broke off a 43-yard touchdown run on CCC’s first possession of the second half to put the Marauders ahead for good.
Meanwhile, the CCC defense took over, holding the Barons to 52 yards after halftime and 146 overall.
“It was really important for us to stay in (Burrill’s) lane, stay in his vision and make sure he makes bad passes,” sophomore edge rusher Na’im Jefferson said. “We emphasized squeezing the pocket and keeping up pressure.”
The stops kept coming. Daveon Belhomme intercepted one pass and broke up another. Junior Kolten Ransom stopped an SPC ball carrier 1 yard short of a first down on fourth down. Pharoah Tillman hustled to recover a well-placed pooch punt.
“I was guarding my man and I saw (another St. Pete Catholic receiver) run an out route and get wide open,” Belhomme said. “I came down, made a play (for the interception) and that’s what got us hyped.”
CCC turned the short fields into points. Hickey scored on a deceptive 4-yard quarterback sweep, and goal-line fullback Dicarieze Williams bulled in for two fourth-quarter touchdowns.
By the end, the numbers were lopsided. CCC ran 69 plays to SPC’s 47, held the ball nearly 15 minutes longer and converted 7 of 13 third downs. The Barons were 1 of 10.
Despite the ankle injury, Barrett carried the ground game, rushing for 140 of the Marauders’ 243 yards.
“I like running the ball, I ain’t going to lie,” Barrett said. “I like both (quarterback and running back), but running the ball ... that’s me, that’s my game. When it’s time to run the ball, it’s time to run the ball.”
Harvey credited the Barons and the atmosphere on their home field.
“This is an interesting atmosphere (at St. Pete Catholic),” he said. “It’s a game that hadn’t been played in a few years and (the Barons) have got a lot of energy as a program.
“I don’t mean this as disrespectful, but there’s levels to this game and we have to be able to stop playing at a certain level and raise our game to the level that we needed to. That’s what we did in the second half.”
