Prep Football 2016: South Fort Myers survives Dunbar to stay unbeaten
FORT MYERS -- The Cardiac Kids from the South Fort Myers High School football team were in the building at Tigers Stadium. And they prepared another encore.
Senior quarterback Maurice Flournoy engineered an 8-play, 80-yard drive with under 4 minutes to play as the Wolfpack completed a 21-16, come-from-behind victory over Dunbar on Friday.
The victory, which came after an hour lightning delay, kept South undefeated at 5-0 and gave it a stranglehold on the Lee County Athletic Conference title. The Wolfpack has needed a second-half surge in all five of their wins.
Meanwhile, Dunbar (3-2) jumped out to a two-score lead for the second straight week only to lose. Last week the Tigers went up 17-0 on Lely and this week two quick scores put them up 14-0 on South.
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“We’ve just been through so much. They feel like there’s always something there,” South interim coach Matt Holderfield said. “It’s going to get us eventually. But they could have fell when we got behind on that lightning delay and they didn’t. They stayed with each other. They calmed down. We knew they had that happen with Lely last week and we told them we can get back in this.”
Trailing 16-13 with 3:48 to play, junior safety Jeshaun Jones picked off a Jairus Johnson pass to the end zone to keep South’s hopes alive, turning the game over to Flournoy. The signal-caller uncorked a 35-yard pass to Brandon Lewis on the first play of the drive.
Dunbar pass interference and face-mask penalties aided the drive. South running back E’Quan Dorris, who rushed for 100 yards on 19 carries, finished it off with a touchdown.
The Wolfpack defense, which has carried it thus far this season, had to make one final stop with Dunbar starting at the South 21 after a good return and a late hit out of bounds.
Johnson threw an incomplete pass on first down, was sacked on second and then was picked off by Trent Rogers to end the game.
“We felt good about our conditioning. We were just trying to wear them down,” Holderfield said. “They came out playing with a lot of emotion. We thought that would teeter out eventually.”
Lajuan Preston broke off a 65-yard touchdown run on Dunbar’s first drive. He finished with 124 yards rushing.
The Tigers then faced a fourth-and-goal from the South 1 on their next series. Johnson got low and snuck into the end zone behind a push from the offensive line to go up 14-0 with 3:11 left in the first.
After a 45-minute lightning delay toward the end of the quarter, South's Riley Ware cut the score in half with a touchdown. He added another to start the second half on the first of two 80-yard drives on the game.
A missed extra point kept the score at 14-13 in Dunbar’s favor.
“We had a bit of a hangover. We came out flat in practice on Monday. It’s tough to get up for big games in back-to-back weeks,” Holderfield said. “We told them after the halftime break we’re going to have to be more physical and we just pounded it at them.”
SOUTH FORT MYERS 21, DUNBAR 16
SFM 0 7 6 8 — 21
D 14 0 0 2 — 16
First quarter
D – Lajaun Preston 65 run (Xavier McDonald kick), 11:15
D – Jairus Johnson 1 run (McDonald kick), 3:11
Second quarter
SFM – Riley Ware 1 run (Daniel Diaz kick), 7:35
Third quarter
SFM – Ware 3 run (Kick failed), 8:10
Fourth quarter
D – Safety, snap out of the back of the end zone, 6:02
D – E’Quan Dorris 10 run (Ware run), 1:45