By Scott H. Shook
With Lely’s offense averaging 46 points a game this season—nearly a point a minute—it’s easy to overlook the Trojans' defense. But on Thursday, Nov. 13, it was the defense that turned the tide, turning a 14-13 first half lead turn into a 52-26 route of Estero at Trojan Stadium in the quarterfinals of the Class 3A, Region 4 state playoffs.
“The defense played great,” said Lely coach Ben Hammer. "They had a couple short fields. They played great the whole game.”
The defense responded to the short fields by stopping Estero twice at the goal line after a couple of early Lely turnovers left them with their backs to the wall.
“Those were self-inflicted wounds,” Hammer said of Lely’s turnovers. "Those are easier to fix."
The 3-seed Trojans' defense stopped 6-seed Estero by getting a few turnovers of their own. Senior defensive back Roberly Gamboa made a leaping interception at the one yard line to snuff out an Estero scoring opportunity with Lely up 14-13 with 8:33 left in the first half. Two minutes later, after Lely was forced to punt out of their own end zone, Maksim Noel leapt to snag an interception in the end zone for a touchback at the 6:30 mark of the second quarter.
Both teams started hot on offense in the first quarter. The Trojans' first two scores were Brady Quinn passes to Romeo Sararo for 10 yards and to Brandon Baptiste for 71 yards. Estero quarterback Maddox Stewart connected for 20 and 30 yard scores. Lely added a 24-yard Quinn to Zephaniah Diamond TD to bring the score to 22-13 with 2:13 left in the half.
Lely almost scored again after forcing a three and out when Quinn threw a 50-50 ball to the front corner of the end zone with :17 left in the first half. Baptiste and Estero defensive back Lincoln Zadach appeared to have simultaneous possession as they grappled for the ball at its apex. Tumbling to the ground it was still hard to determine possession. Baptiste emerged with the ball, but it was ruled that Zadach had possession when the players hit the ground. Hammer bellowed from the bench area, “How can that be!”
But the tide had indeed turned and Lely dominated the second half, outscoring the Wildcats 30-13 behind a 4-yard touchdown run by Quinn, 22 and 10 yard TD runs by running back Nino Joseph, and a sweet 30-yard catch and run by Baptiste, his second score of the night.
Quinn was hot all night, with four TD passes and the TD run where he peeled right after a slick fake to Joseph going left. Quinn was 17-28 for 232 yards passing. Joseph, the state’s leading rusher in class 3A with 1878 yards, had 207 against Estero.
“That is awesome for Nino,” Hammer said. "We're not big into stats, but our offensive line did a nice job. All the kids operated. That last run by Nino was unbelievable, though. Probably the best of his career."
A conspicuous absence from the box score was utility man Ty Collins, whose only score came on an amazing catch on a two point conversion. Hammer said Estero was keying on the multifaceted senior. But even as a decoy, Collins makes his presence felt.
“They were trying to take away his jet sweep stuff and fake jet stuff,” Hammer said. "He does so much for so many people. The screen pass that Brandon Baptiste took for the big, long touchdown, I think Ty had three guys that tackled him. So we're going to take what people give us and execute that way.”
For the most part this season, when a defense is able to take away one weapon, the Trojans are able to reply with a number of other weapons, including a deep receiving corps.
“They're fast, they're tall, they're athletic,” Hammer said of his receivers. “But some of it was double moves. Estero was playing a lot of man coverage and rolling to cover three with a real hard safety. So there were some double move opportunities that we knew would be open.”
Baptiste caught six passes for 127 yards.
“He's working hard,” Hammer said. “He's athletic. And the other thing with having so many in that stable of receivers is they're really healthy. And everybody can't say that right now. Those kids have worked hard and battled all year to for playing time and catches and all that. But it's allowed them to stay healthy and continue to improve."
The road doesn’t get easier for the Trojans (8-3) as they travel to play state and national power Miami Central (9-1) on Thursday, Nov. 20 at 7:30 p.m. Central, the 2-seed in the region, bounced 7-seed St. Brendon (4-7) 70-0 to advance to the regional semifinals. Estero finishes at 7-4.
“They’re a storied program,” Hammer said of Miami Central. "Bunch of state championships. I'm sure they're well coached. I'm sure they're big, fast, physical. But so are we. And we'll be excited for that matchup. It's a great opportunity. It’s better than turning your stuff in.”
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