Lakewood Ranch coach’s debut starts with a flourish. Growing pains soon followed.

The first official drive of Christopher Culton’s new tenure as Lakewood Ranch High’s coach went just the way he knows it can.

In three plays, the Mustangs ran the ball three times to cover more than half the field and find the end zone.

For the next two-and-a-half quarters, the growing pains showed.

Lakewood Ranch mixed extended drives of a clicking triple option with quick stall outs in Culton’s official debut on the Mustangs sideline, a 21-14 loss to Cape Coral Ida Baker.

Lakewood Ranch found a recipe early and followed it. Quarterback George Davis trusted fullback Drake Theriot and pounded it up the middle. The Ida Baker defense keyed on the fullback and Davis was able to tuck the ball himself to run for a 25-yard touchdown in the opening minutes.

“When it was working, it was beautiful. It was what you want. Everything was going nice,” Culton said. “When it was going right, it was going right. It was everything you want to see.”

The biggest challenge for Lakewood Ranch’s quarterbacks, though, will be learning to read the defense in a triple option system.

Culton knows when he entrusts a high school athlete to make 60 or so reads a game, occasionally the quarterback will resort to guessing.

The Mustangs offense wouldn’t find the end zone again until 3:44 remaining, when Josh Pollard hit running back Jake Turner for a 48-yard touchdown to cut the deficit to 21-14.