Venice               28

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St. Petersburg     14

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Clearwater         0

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It was expected Countryside would handle Clearwater. It was expected the Cougars defense would stymie senior quarterback Rob Yarbrough. It was expected senior running back Diomi Roberts would trample Clearwater.

Well, scratch the last two.

Countryside got it done through the air, especially in the first half, beating Clearwater 35-0 Friday.

“It started early getting short completions and we were able to build confidence from there,” Cougar senior quarterback Gray Crow said. “Soon after, we were clicking on all cylinders.”

Crow was 10 of 18 for 110 yards and two touchdowns.

Yarbrough had a much tougher outing, but despite overwhelming pressure went 14 of 23 for 100 yards. He also rushed for 20 yards.

The Tornadoes had no answer for the Cougars’ skill players, Marrieo Taylor and Roberts. Roberts finished off two long catches with two short touchdown runs in just the first quarter. He finished with 60 yards rushing and 75 receiving. Taylor was just shy of 75 yards receiving with a touchdown.

The Cougars were up 28-0 when they sent in wildcat quarterback, junior Mike Tsalickis, to grind it out. And grind it, the Cougars did  behind a staunch offensive line.

“Jeff Albert is out anchor up front,” coach Jared Davis said. “(Zach) Rosinski and Jake Smith played great, too. We’re pretty confident in sending six guys (offensive linemen) on the field.”

The swarming Cougar defense held the Tornadoes to just over 150 yards of total offense.

“Clearwater makes you cover the whole field and we were able to do that,” Davis said.

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Wiregrass Ranch    6

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Countryside      24

Palm Harbor     21

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The Countryside Cougars take pride in their regular-season winning streak. On Friday night it took Ryan Yates’ 1-yard touchdown run with 41 seconds left to extend it to 15 games as the Cougars edged Palm Harbor University 24-21.

“We just took the best team in the county to the edge right there,” Hurricanes coach Matt LePain said. “The kids are disappointed, but that tells me it means something to them.”

PHU received the opening kickoff and on the second play from scrimmage Billy Pavlock broke free for an 80-yard touchdown run. Logan Ruby added the point-after.

The Cougars tied it in the first quarter as quarterback Gray Crow found receiver Marrieo Taylor for a 22-yard score.

The Hurricanes later went for it on fourth and long at the Cougars’ 31-yard line. Shane Dixon wrestled Pavlock’s pass away from a Countryside defender for a touchdown.

Ryan Pandy’s 25-yard field goal closed the gap to 14-10 at the half.

In the second half, Crow was intercepted by Skylar Snow, and on the next play Pavlock broke four tackles on a 43-yard touchdown run for a 21-10 lead.

“At that point there I told our guys there is a lot of football left,” Countryside coach Jared Davis said. “The defense believed they could still win.”

Early in the fourth quarter the Hurricanes forced the Cougars to fumble inside the 5-yard line and intercepted Crow a second time.

But with five minutes to go, Taylor received a punt, got some blocks and went 80 yards for a touchdown to narrow the gap to 21-17.

Countryside got the ball back with under three minutes to go and Crow drove the Cougars 57 yards in 10 plays before Yates capped the drive.

“Our guys never quit and that shows character,” Davis said.  “You have to play every minute, all 48 minutes.

Crow finished 28-of-46 with 254 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions. Taylor caught 10 passes for 88 yards and a touchdown.

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Largo                  18

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For most of the 21st century, Largo has worn the crown as the marquee program in Pinellas County. The reign, though, appears to have come to an end.

Diomi Roberts rushed for 180 yards and three touchdowns to lead Countryside to a 28-18 victory over the Packers on Friday. The Cougars (3-0) have taken three straight regular-season meetings from Largo since a playoff loss to it in 2008.

“Everybody talks about (Largo’s) a physical team,” said Roberts, whose team rushed for 219 yards in all.

“We just wanted to show them who was more physical and who was the best team in Pinellas County. They’ve got a good tradition here at Largo, and now we’re starting one at Countryside.”

Largo (1-2) had its chances. After a 40-yard punt return for a touchdown by Derrick Doss cut its lead to 20-12 with 10:27 left, Countryside embarked on a 12-play, 59-yard drive capped by Roberts’ 7 -yard touchdown.

The Cougars converted a fourth and 1 from the Packers 37, Roberts taking an option pitch 7 yards.

Almost as important, the drive took nearly seven minutes off the clock.

“I was going to punt, and Diomi came up to me and said, ‘Coach, I got this. Run this play, and it’s mine,’  ” Cougars coach Jared Davis said. “I said, ‘If you’re telling me that, you better do it.’  ”

The Cougars extend their regular-season win streak to 17 games. Three wins have come against the Packers.

“We don’t think about the past victories,” Roberts said. “We just think about the next one; the one in front of us.”

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Countryside            27

East Lake                  21

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The showcase of prolific Pinellas quarterbacks, staged against a backdrop of a rivalry steeped in smack talk, never came to fruition.

On a soggy September night, Countryside-East Lake wasn’t about astounding throws.

It was about throwbacks.

The first was of the old-school sense, a retro Cougars rushing attack that tied the score in the third quarter. The second was a literal throwback screen pass that Cougars sophomore Mike Johnson picked and returned 9 yards for a touchdown.

It provided the decisive cushion in a 27-21 Cougars triumph before roughly 2,500 at East Lake Stadium. Countryside (2-0) has won seven of the past eight in this heated series.

“They were talking a lot of junk about us, Facebook and everything, talking about how they’re going to beat us,” said Johnson, who had interceptions on consecutive fourth-quarter drives.

“So we had to show them who was No. 1 in Pinellas County.”

The Cougars did it mainly with Johnson’s instinctiveness and tailback DiomiRoberts’ legs. The senior finished with 122 yards on 23 carries as Countryside all but abandoned the passing game in the second half.

After East Lake quarterback Pete DiNovo (11-for-22, 188 yards) found ArtavisScott in single coverage over the middle for an 80-yard TD on the second half’s opening play, Roberts carried nine times for 54 yards on the ensuing drive.

His final carry — a 2-yard TD — and Ryan Pandy’s ensuing PAT tied the score at 14-all. The 15-play drive consumed nearly seven minutes.

“That was old-fashioned Countryside football right there,” 315-pound left tackle Jeff Albert said.

“We put it on his back at halftime,” Cougars coach Jared Davis added. “We said we’re going to ride you til you can’t walk, and you saw it, we did.”

The Cougars took a 21-14 lead on Ryan Yates’ 4-yard scoring run on the fourth quarter’s first play. Tyler Serpo set up the score by blocking Sebastian Gonzalez’s punt attempt that began with a low snap. On the next Eagles possession, Johnson stepped in front of DiNovo’s throwback screen attempt, deflected it to himself and raced 9 yards for the TD. The ensuing PAT failed.

“We run it in practice,” Johnson said. “I saw the ball up in the air and I’m like, ‘Yeah, they’re doing the screen,’ and I just came up and picked it off.”

DiNovo and senior counterpart Gray Crow (7-for-22, 54 yards, two INTs) traded picks on the next two possessions — they combined for four — before Eagles senior Tyler Lane capped a six-play drive with a 3-yard TD run.

East Lake senior Khol Lilley recovered the ensuing squib kick, but the Eagles went three plays and out. On third and 9 from Countryside’s 41, DiNovo found Scott behind a defender inside the red zone, but the ball bounced off his fingertips.

Countryside took more than 4 1/2 minutes off the clock on eight runs on its next drive.

“We’re the better football team,” said DiNovo, whose team lost fumbles on its first two possessions. “We made too many mistakes, came into the game too cocky, didn’t prepare the way we should’ve and that’s the outcome we get.”

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Cypress Bay           2

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Chance after frantic chance Countryside had in its hand Friday in its 2-1 loss to Weston Cypress Bay in the Class 6A state semifinals, each one more tempting and frustrating than the other. Finally, desperation seemed to tighten like a noose, strangling the Cougars’ patience and accuracy.

In the end, Countryside’s Derya Ekren had a chance for a corner kick to try to tie the game but could not get the shot off before time expired.

Afterward, the Cougars slumped to the ground, each enveloped in his own silent misery before trudging off the field at the University of Tampa’s Pepin Stadium.

“It’s pretty difficult to handle,” Countryside goalkeeper Hunter Maricle said. “It’s hard to have the season come down to this.”

The Cougars entered the game as the No. 9 team in the nation according to the latest ESPN Rise poll. But Countryside was lethargic early as Cypress Bay dictated the pace.

Within the first 10 minutes, the Lightning took the lead as Carlos Vargas, the team’s leading scorer, knocked in a high shot that sailed just above Maricle’s reach.

“For the first 20 minutes or so we were flat,” Cougars coach Dave Sica said. “We were just stunned and lost our composure for a little bit. But the sign of a good team is being able to answer back, and we did.”

Three minutes after Cypress took the lead, Countryside tied the game as Ekren cut back to his left and hit a shot to make it 1-1.
“Things go back and forth and momentum swinging in either team’s direction,” Ekren said. “It just didn’t go our way. But there is nothing to regret.”

The score remained 1-1 at the half. Both teams had chances in the second half but were not able to convert. The Cougars twice had shots deflected off the goalkeeper’s hands.

Then with 6:38 remaining in regulation, the Lightning went on a counterattack and got the ball over the top of the defense. Maricle came charging out from the net to stop a potential shot, but Vargas popped the ball free to Andres Torres, 5 yards from the goal.

Torres accelerated as everything around him seemed to slow down, he said later, and he punched the ball into an empty net. Torres ran to the corner flag, then sprinted up near the sidelines as his teammates converged on him in celebration.

“There’s nothing like getting a game-winning goal,” Torres said. “It’s the best feeling in the world.”

There was still time left, and Countryside tried to push the ball up but could not get another shot on goal.

“We had faced adversity all season, and we played until the final whistle,” Sica said. “You have to get lucky breaks along the way to win a state title. We didn’t tonight.”

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Canterbury               1

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Canterbury’s season opener against Countryside was just the kind of game coach Jody Moore envisioned.

A tough one.

For the first time in her six years at the school, Moore was able to schedule a Pinellas County public school team in a regular-season game.

It was a game that came down to the end Tuesday with the Cougars preserving a 2-1 win on Sommer Pollard’s throw home to catcher Hailee Keisling, who put the tag on the Crusaders’ Savvy Mitchell for the final out in the seventh inning.

“We always want to play up against stronger opposition,” said Moore, who guided Canterbury to the Class A state tournament for the second straight season last year. “We’re thankful for Countryside giving us the opportunity.”

It also was a tough test for the Cougars, who have nine freshmen on the roster, including four starters.

One of the starters was pitcher Eryn Rowe, who shook off a rough start to pick up her third win. In the first inning, Rowe hit leadoff batter Sarah Fleming, who stole second then scored on an error to give Canterbury a 1-0 lead.

Countryside (3-0) tied the game in the bottom of the inning when Keisling singled then scored on an error.

Keisling helped keep the Crusaders off the bases by throwing out four runners.

“I’m a coach that likes to take some chances,” Moore said. “We kept sending the runner, but Countryside made some plays behind the plate.”

The winning run came in the fifth inning when Pollard doubled, advanced to third on a sacrifice bunt by Ayanna Andrews and scored on an error.

“This was a good game for us,” Countryside coach Kaylyn Bayly said. “Canterbury is a good team that’s made the final four a few years. We have a young team and this gives us some confidence.”

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Tarpon               2

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*Score by Inning not known, if you know leave a comment below.