Palmetto leans on defense to beat St. Pete

The days before Palmetto’s spring game Friday in St. Petersburg gave the Tigers at least a hint of a reason to worry. PHS wasn’t playing like a team that had been spending five months preparing for one exhibition game. The offense, after losing every starting skill-position starter, was going to have growing pains. The defense should have been in order.

Instead, the week leading up to Palmetto’s spring classic against St. Petersburg was filled with mistakes on the more experienced side of the ball. Some of it was the perfectionism every coach expects of his team. Too much was simple errors.

“People haven’t been getting reads, filling their holes,” defensive back Mike Collins said. “We’ve been having a hard time in practice. I’m not going to lie about that.”

Relief, however, came quickly at Stewart Field. The third play from scrimmage at St. Petersburg High School was a rollout to the right for Ola Thomas. The Green Devil quarterback tried to pick out a wide receiver and wound up throwing into a crowd. Collins was in the middle of the chaos and came out of it with an interception to set up the Tigers’ first score of the game. PHS never trailed during its spring game, pulling away for a 27-7 win against St. Pete.

Collins’ interception was also the first of two takeaways for the rising junior and three total for Palmetto. Collins also recovered a fumble in the fourth quarter and defensive end Teddy Washington ran back another fumble recovery for a touchdown later in the final period.

“It’s a new era,” head coach Dave Marino said. “Our offense has scored a lot of points the past few seasons. Now it’s the defense’s turn.”

The Tigers’ defense shook off all the issues it had during the spring. To go along with its three takeaways, PHS’ defense also recorded two sacks and blocked a pair of kicks. Linebacker Andrew Duncan recorded both sacks, one of which led to Washington’s touchdown, and also blocked a punt.

This offseason in Palmetto has been spent setting up a new philosophy. The Tigers lost a Division I quarterback, running back and wide receiver all to graduation, and don’t have a true quarterback on the roster. Jason Spicer, who played wideout last fall, made the full-time move under center to operate a run-heavy, option-based system. Flanking him is a deep stable of running backs.

Six different players, including Spicer, recorded carries Friday to tether PHS’ offense. Even when Spicer did connect for his lone touchdown pass it was on a 22-yard screen pass to rising sophomore running back Corian Brown. Fellow rising sophomore unning back Johnny Jones scored Palmetto’s other offensive touchdown on a 5-yard run in the fourth quarter, his final touch of an eight-carry, 57-yard game. Rising junior running back Herman White led the team with 10 carries for 71 yards. The load on Spicer was light, at least for one night.

“We’ve got four returning starters on the O-line and we’ve got a stable of running backs. We’re going to be a different team this season,” Marino said. “It’s high school football. You’ve got to adapt.”

This story was originally published May 27, 2016 at 11:48 PM with the headline "Palmetto leans on defense to beat St. Pete."