Southeast rolls over North Port 34-14 in spring football game

Going into the spring, Rashad West was feeling his defense would have to carry the offense for a good part of the season.

The new Southeast High head football coach might have to alter his thinking after the way the Seminoles racked up 492 yards of offense in steam rolling past North Port 34-14 in a spring football game Friday night at John Kiker Memorial Stadium.

“The score is nice, that’s great, but we have to get better,” West said. “We were trying to get our kids to buy into what we were doing, and I wanted for them to have some success tonight no matter what the score was and see that the stuff we were telling them works.”

West wasn’t sure who his quarterback might be, but that could turn out to be problem every coach would like to have, especially being so young at the position.

Alex Taylor started at quarterback and the sophomore completed 12 of 21 passes for 217 yards and two touchdowns. Freshman Johnny Schoolfield relieved him and completed three of five passes for 97 yards and two touchdowns while picking up 44 yards rushing on 11 carries in showing some nice escape-ability.

“It’s a good situation, and we have all summer to figure it out,” West said. “They both did some good things, but we have a lot to clean up. Johnny lives on the broken play and he can run around. Alex has some athleticism and he can make things happen when the ball is in his hands. Alex threw some good balls down the field and has good command of our offense.”

The two quarterbacks got some good support from receiver Terrance Pryor, who led the Noles with six receptions for 141 yards including touchdown passes of 53 and 20 yards from Schoolfield. Frankie Clericus sparked the ground game with 113 yards on nine carries that included a 40-yard touchdown run. He got 97 yards in the second half.

“Terrence sometimes gets frustrated like all receivers because they all want the ball. I just tell him to stay with it and not get frustrated and that he is going to catch balls in his offense.” West said. “Frankie started to understand what we were trying to do in the second half and started to run downhill more and ran through some arm tackles.”

Pryor came on strong in the second half when he caught four passes for 107 yards. His two touchdown receptions came in the last eight minutes of the game when he started to get behind the North Port secondary. He dropped one sure touchdown pass.

“The first one was a seem down the middle. The quarterback looked the safety off and threw the ball over the top where I was wide open,” Pryor said. “Before that catch I dropped one because I was looking down on myself and the next play the quarterback gave me another chance.”

Taylor completed a 59-yard touchdown pas to Bradley Tresalus and a 20-yard touchdown strike to Jattorious Galloway. On the defensive side, Dequan Williams had a big night. Derrick Bradley and Lee Martin had an interception for Southeast.

This story was originally published May 19, 2016 at 11:58 PM with the headline "Southeast rolls over North Port 34-14 in spring football game."