The Osceola Warriors will look to defend their home field on Friday against the Largo Packers at 7:30 p.m. Both squads will be entering this one on the heels of a big victory.
Last Friday, Osceola never let their opponents score. They claimed a resounding 42-0 win over DeSoto County at home. Osceola pushed the score to 35-0 by the end of the third, a deficit DeSoto County had no chance of recovering from.
Osceola's success was the result of a balanced attack that saw several players step up, but Nate Gooden led the charge by rushing for 77 yards and a touchdown. The team also got some help courtesy of Nathan Carter, who rushed for 71 yards and a touchdown on only eight carries.
Meanwhile, Largo had already won five in a row (a stretch where they outscored their opponents by an average of 21.6 points), and they went ahead and made it six on Friday. They were the clear victor by a 40-16 margin over Lakewood. Given Largo's advantage in MaxPreps' Florida football rankings (they are ranked 108th, while Lakewood is ranked 249th), the result wasn't entirely unexpected.
Largo can attribute much of their success to Jeremy Thomas, who rushed for 72 yards and three touchdowns on only nine carries, and also threw for 75 yards and a touchdown. Largo also got a significant boost from Malachi Peterson, who ran away from the competition to the tune of 105 yards.
Osceola is on a roll lately: they've won three of their last four games, which provided a nice bump to their 4-4 record this season. As for Largo, their win was their fourth straight at home, bumping their overall record up to 7-1.
Osceola didn't have too much breathing room in their game against Largo in their previous meeting back in October of 2022, but they still walked away with a 17-13 victory. Will Osceola repeat their success, or does Largo have a new game plan this time around? We'll find out soon enough.
