Preview: Tampa Catholic Crusaders vs. Jefferson Dragons
The Tampa Catholic Crusaders will look to defend their home field on Friday against the Jefferson Dragons at 7:00 p.m. Tampa Catholic will be hoping to continue their three-game streak of scoring more points each matchup than the last.
Tampa Catholic pushed their score all the way to 48 on Thursday, but even that wasn't enough to win. They fell just short of Fort Myers by a score of 51-48. Despite running the score up even higher than they did two weeks ago (38), Tampa Catholic still had to take the loss.
Tampa Catholic might have lost, but man, Trey Hedden was a machine: he threw for 327 yards and three touchdowns while picking up 12.1 yards per attempt, and also punched in two touchdowns on the ground. The team also got some help courtesy of Tj Moore, who picked up 155 receiving yards and two touchdowns.
Even if they lost, Tampa Catholic's defensive line sure didn't make it easy: Fort Myers' QB was sacked 4.5 times before it was all said and done. Leading the way was Xavier Porter and his two sacks.
Meanwhile, Jefferson's recent rough patch got a bit rougher two weeks ago after their sixth straight loss. They ended up on the wrong side of a rough 35-14 walloping at the hands of Robinson. Jefferson was down 28-6 at the end of the third quarter, which was just too much to recover from.
The loss doesn't tell the whole story though, as several players had good games. One of the most active was Ronnell Dubose, who rushed for 115 yards on only 12 carries. Another player making a difference was Jack Cunningham, who threw for 139 yards and two touchdowns.
Tampa Catholic now has a losing record at 3-4. As for Jefferson, their loss was their sixth straight at home, which dropped their overall record down to 1-7.
Tampa Catholic took their victory against Jefferson when the teams last played back in October of 2022 by a conclusive 35-14. One of the biggest obstacles trying to stand in the way of that victory was Jefferson's Nashaun Pryor, who rushed for 140 yards and a touchdown. Now that he won't be playing on Friday, will it be that much easier for Tampa Catholic to walk away with another win? Check MaxPreps.com after the match to find out.
