Pirates show improvement in victory

SARASOTA — The strides that Braden River made over the summer were evident on the first two series of Friday night’s Kickoff Classic, but first-year head coach Don Purvis knows there is still plenty of room for improvement.

The visiting Pirates jumped out to a 13-0 lead and did enough to overcame a sometimes generous nature as they claimed a 34-14 victory over host Cardinal Mooney.

Following two first-quarter touchdown runs by Dipo Kolawole and Jaredd Pate, Braden River fell victim to seven penalties that cost them several big plays and aided the Cougars’ two touchdown drives.

“I give a lot of credit to Cardinal Mooney,” said Purvis, whose team dropped a 42-21 decision to Riverview in the spring. “They were lining up and just playing base defense. They were sitting back and watching us, which allowed us kind of dictate what we wanted to do. After that second (touchdown) drive, they totally changed things and turned into an attacking defense. I’m glad we saw that because those are some things we know to work on Monday.”

A personal foul facemask following Anthony Caiazzo’s 44-yard kickoff return, combined with a fourth-down pickup from quarterback Alex Nugent to Stephen Hueston, enabled the Cougars to put together an eight-play scoring drive that pulled them to within 13-7 with 34.8 seconds left in the first quarter. Daniel Lee accounted for the touchdown by hauling in an 8-yard pass from Nugent.

The Braden River defense, which held the Cougars to 73 yards of total offense, made it a 20-7 game with 9:36 left in the second quarter as Chase Winkler recovered the ball in the end zone following a fumble from the Mooney 8. A blocked punt by Keith Grafton led to a 49-yard scoring run by Reshay McQueen to give the Pirates a 27-7 lead late in the third quarter.

The Pirates, who had a long run deep inside Mooney territory by Kolawole negated by a personal foul late in the second quarter, also had what appeared to be 15-yard touchdown pass from Steven Ross to usual quarterback Ryan Fischer negated by an offensive pass interference penalty in the fourth quarter.

A long kickoff return to start the game by Mike Glover was wiped away by offsetting penalties.

“I was upset that we had so many touchdowns and long plays called back,” said Purvis. “That’s what I’m talking about — the sloppy things that we’re on us. Those are mistakes we can’t afford to make no matter who the opponent is.”

Mooney’s passing game struggled throughout the night as Nugent, a senior and first-year quarterback, only completed five of his 24 attempts for 67 yards. However, Nugent did string together three straight completions in the fourth quarter, including an 18-yard scoring pass to Rick Pecorelli that cut the lead to 27-14.

“With the wet conditions, it wasn’t a great night for Nugent to go out there and show his stuff,” said Cardinal Mooney coach Josh Smithers. “We saw a little bit of what he is going to be able to do. He’s grown quite a bit since the spring when he was just a quarterback for 17, 18 days.”

Javar Baity did most of the work on the Pirates’ final scoring drive before punching it in from 4 yards out with under 90 seconds to go. Baity ran four times for 53 yards on the drive.

Both teams will be on the road for their Sept. 3 regular-season openers. Braden River will head to rival Lakewood Ranch on Sept. 3, while the Cougars visit LaBelle.