JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – One side had been battling more than 10 months of frustration. The other had been feeling it for 48 minutes of game time Friday night.
After Trinity Christian’s defense stifled University Christian for a 14-0 victory in District 1M action, it was a most un-Christian-like handshake line. A scuffle broke out between both sides, with some players pushing and shoving at a minimum and staff from both sides mixed up the middle.
It wasn’t a cooler-heads-prevail postgame, either, in which teams settle down after a minute or so and shake and move on. Instead, UC coach David Penland III and his assistants had to gather up players and get them into the locker room, where they decamped there for some time. On the other side, a victorious Verlon Dorminey loudly hammered home the point to his team to not be stupid, that one action interpreted as a punch was a season-ender with no appeal.
He even added a line in the team prayer about “please help our kids keep their cool.” That’s a good gauge of how heated it was in the aftermath.
But, as the officials had left the field, Dorminey did not believe discipline would come from the FHSAA.
“They’re caught up in the moment, shaking hands. I don’t know who said what,” Dorminey said. “But all of the sudden, there’s a pushing match going on. It’s football. It’s an emotional game.
“Our administration, their administration will iron it out.”
Some players on both sides played it smart and avoided the scrum. Conquerors outside linebacker Bryce Kazmierczak, for example, said he steered clear of it.
But one place Kazmierczak did not shy from was the UC backfield. He knocked the ball away as it left the arm of Fightin’ Christians quarterback Dwayne Stuckey on a fourth down, had a strip sack on another play, was in on another sack and had a hurry for good measure.
“We’ve been prepared all week for this, studied what they were doing,” Kazmierczak said. “Whenever they drop straight back, I just try to get back there and mess things up.”
He succeeded. Four times, UC (4-3, 1-2) went for it on fourth down. Four times, TC (5-3, 2-0) came up with the big play on the way to its second shutout of the season.
The first was very damaging, with third-and-goal from the 2 and then fourth down from the 1. But Luke Baker hauled down Alan Woods III for a five-yard loss on fourth down. The next came when Kazmierczak knocked the ball from Stuckey’s grasp at the Conquerors 25, which was close to another strip sack but ruled incomplete. The third was an incompletion from the TC 27 at the start of the fourth quarter. The last came when Woods was stopped on a fourth-and-1 late in the game.
Factor in the strip sack and interceptions from Kyle Gillyard, which set up a score, and Kyle Boylston, which ended the game and the Christians’ last scoring hope, and it was a miserable 48 minutes for the UC offense. While the Christians had 69 yards of offense on their opening possession, which ended when Baker hauled down Woods, the team had 127 total yards in the nearly 46 minutes after that.
That helped ease the sting a bit from last November when UC upended the Conquerors in the postseason after losing to them during the regular season and not having beat TC in 30 seasons.
“It means a lot because they put us out of the playoffs last year,” Dorminey said. “They put out a little stuff on social media that we weren’t happy about, and our kids were ready to play. They knew they had to play a good, physical football game.”
Enter Kazmierczak, who closed often on Stuckey during the quarterback’s 25 pass attempts.
“Bryce is just a kid that is extremely tough, plays this game like it ought to be played,” Dorminey said. “He’s from Baker County, and he’s just one of those kids that’s been raised in the woods. He’s hard and tough, and he’s our best edge player. He gets after it off the edge.”
The offense just needed to make a few plays. As well as the Conquerors defense played, UC was not far behind, holding TC to 247 yards.
But the Conquerors were able to do just enough on offense. After Baker’s stop, Trinity drove 94 yards for the first touchdown, with Darnell Rogers converting a fourth-and-1 for a 20-yard scoring run. Rogers rolled up 67 of his 142 rushing yards on that drive.
Gillyard’s third-quarter pick set his team up on the UC 41. Rogers rattled off a 30-yard run, leading to quarterback Colin Hurley hitting Kyle Boylston with a six-yard scoring pass for a 14-0 lead midway through the third.
“Our real problem is (Rogers) would be getting loose a lot more but we’ve lost three starting offensive lineman,” Dorminey said. “We’ve patched this thing up. He’s doing the best he can.”
That victory keeps the Conquerors’ hopes for a district title intact, with a big showdown with Providence in two weeks. UC still has a strong hope for the postseason, but the district title is out of reach after it lost to Providence early in the season.
It was an emotional victory, Kazmierczak said, but it’s already time to move ahead.
“We’ll be going into a bye week,” Kazmierczak said. “We’ve got to prepare for Providence because they’re a good team.”
Trinity Christian 14, University Christian 0
Trinity Christian, 7, 0, 7, 0 —14
University Christian, 0, 0, 0, 0 — 0
TC – Darnell Rogers 20 run (Kaiden Douglas kick)
TC – Kyle Boylston 6 pass from Colin Hurley (Douglas kick)
Category: TC — UC
First downs: 12 — 10
Rushes-yards: 34-173 — 32-74
Passing: 74 — 122
Comp-Att-Int: 9-21-1 — 8-25-2
Fumbles-lost: 2-0 — 2-1
Penalties-Yards: 8-80 — 8-70
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING — TC: Rogers 22-142, Hurley 7-25, Cameron Anderson 4-6, Jayke Jones 1-0. UC: Alan Woods III 22-77, Brandon Riddle 3-15, Dwayne Stuckey 7-(-18).
PASSING — TC: Hurley 9-21-1-74. UC: Stuckey 8-25-2-122.
RECEIVING — TC: Boylston 3-28, Miles Burris 2-22, London Smith 2-19, Kyle Gillyard 2-5. UC: Amare Mack 2-69, Riddle 3-33, CJ Barns 1-12, Jenoa Alford 1-4, Jacob Jennings 1-4.