Couple issues today on the show.

A couple of issues today.

Clearwater       6

SCORE BY QUARTER

The night belonged to the team that had success  in the red zone. Countryside picked up  two Diomi Roberts 1-yard scores,  while Clearwater struggled to capitalize as the Cougars earned a  21-6 victory Friday.

The teams battled in the first half with neither gaining much ground. Quarterback Gray Crow threw an interception in the end zone on Countryside’s first possession. A couple plays later, the Cougars’ Terry Johnson blasted Clearwater quarterback Ryan Hagen while Hagen ran an option play and Hagen did  not return.

A 28-yard pass  from Crow to Nico Morgado set up Countryside’s lone first-half touchdown when  Roberts forced his way in from 1-yard out.

“We were slacking at first on offense, but we picked it up toward the end,” said Countryside’s Terry Johnson.
Robert Yarbrough filled in nicely for  Hagen, but the offense sputtered in the red zone. A  cut block penalty followed by a fumble kept the Tornadoes scoreless in the first half.

Crow threw another interception, allowing Clearwater in the red zone again. Yarbrough gave it right back with an interception .
Countryside (6-0, 2-0) came out strong in the second half, running  six times and ending in  Johnson’s 1-yard touchdown.

“We had to continue to wear them down,” said Countryside coach Jared Davis. “We put it on them and we told our kids we were going to be physical.”

Clearwater (4-2, 0-2) answered with  a screen  to Bennie Niles, who ran  34 yards  to the Countryside 7.  Yarbrough threw a 15-yard touchdown  to Jon Hogan to cut the  lead to 14-6 .

Countryside put it away when Roberts scampered 33 yards and set up his second touchdown two plays later.

A couple audio issues today.

Osceola               21

Countryside surrendered a long pass play to Osceola to fall behind 7-0, then scored 35 unanswered points in the first half to roll to a 48-21 victory on the road Thursday.

Countryside (3-0) got two rushing touchdowns each from Diomi Roberts and Terry Johnson, and the Cougars scored six times total on the ground.

But it was a budding passing game that most pleased first-year coach Jared Davis.

“We threw the ball better tonight than we did in our first two games,” Davis said.

After surrendering an early touchdown, the Cougars answered on its next drive when Joey Lombardi ran a wide receiver speed sweep for a 60-yard score.

Osceola fumbled the ensuing kickoff, and Roberts scored the first of his two touchdowns to put Countryside ahead 14-7.

From there the rout was on. The Cougars led 35-7 at halftime.

“We had some big plays tonight,” Davis said. “But we also gave up a couple big plays.”

Lombardi caught a 40-yard pass to set up another Countryside score. Cougars fullback Ryan Yates had his first touchdown of the season on a short burst up the middle.

Linebacker Adam Vinson scored a defensive touchdown for the Cougars after ripping the ball from an Osceola rusher in the middle of a pileup and returning it to paydirt.

Countryside   21

Boca Ciega      20

The voice of Countryside first-year  coach Jared Davis was cracking by the conclusion of the Cougars’ 21-20 opening-day victory over Boca Ciega, undoubtedly the result of too-many-to-count broken tackles by Pirates quarterback Shaquille Bradford.

Davis was exhausted, breathless and drenched in sweat.

He was also the happiest man in Clearwater after securing his first  head coaching victory.

It took an entire quarter for them to get untracked, but Davis’ Cougars (1-0) pounced on a number of Boca Ciega mistakes to go up 21-7 midway through the third quarter Friday, then, much as they had to do a year earlier in a narrow win over the Pirates , held on to preserve the one-point victory.

“It feels great because it’s over,” Davis laughed. “Now we can hopefully go get a whole bunch more (wins).”

On the opposite side, the Pirates  (0-1) will look at Friday’s game as one  they let slip through their grasp. After falling behind by two touchdowns, the Pirates’ Denzal Dillard returned a kickoff 95 yards, breaking a couple tackles around his own 20 before outracing his pursuers down the left sideline to stem the Cougars’ momentum and bring his team within a touchdown.

Countryside went three-and-out on its next drive, and the Pirates were given a gift when Cougars punter Ryan Halter put his knee on the ground on his own  1-yard line attempting to field a low snap. Bradford ran off the left side on the next play with 3:35 left in the third quarter for what appeared to be the game-tying score, that is until Jaylaan Winbush’s extra-point attempt sailed wide left.

“It’s very disappointing,” Bradford said. “I believe we should have come out with the win. We fell a little short. We can’t blame anybody but ourselves.”

Terry Johnson proved to be the man of the game for Countryside, The 6-foot, 215-pound senior intercepted a Bradford pass late in the first half and returned it 40 yards to give the Cougars a 14-7 advantage at halftime. In the third quarter, Johnson (15 carries, 127 yards) busted through the middle of the Pirates defense for an 80-yard touchdown run to put Countryside ahead 21-7.

“Two huge plays,” Davis said.

Boca Ciega had the ball in Countryside territory three  times in the fourth quarter but couldn’t produce points after an interception and  penalties thwarted each drive. On the final play of the game from his own 40, Bradford (119 yards rushing, two touchdowns) scrambled for nearly 20 seconds, trying to find an open receiver before finally taking a  sack.

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tampabay.com      Home Team

A team of scientists trying to figure out how much oil has been flowing since the offshore rig Deepwater Horizon exploded April 20 and sank two days later found the rate was at least twice and possibly up to five times as high as previously thought.

Even using the most conservative estimate, that means the leak has grown to nearly 19 million gallons, surpassing the size of the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster, which at about 11 million gallons had been the nation’s worst spill. Under the highest estimate, nearly 39 million gallons may have spilled.

U.S. Geological Survey Director Marcia McNutt said two different teams of scientists calculated that the well has been spewing between 504,000 and more than 1 million gallons a day.

BP and the Coast Guard estimated soon after the explosion that about 210,000 gallons a day was leaking, but scientists who watched underwater video of well had been saying for weeks it was probably more.

Last week, BP inserted a mile-long tube to siphon some of the oil into a tanker. The tube sucked up 924,000 gallons of oil, but engineers had to dismantle so they could start the risky procedure known as a top kill to try to cut off the flow altogether by shooting heavy drilling fluid into the well.

If that works, BP will then inject cement into the well to seal it. The top kill has been used above ground but has never before been tried 5,000 feet beneath the sea. BP pegged its chance of success at 60 to 70 percent.

Fishermen, hotel and restaurant owners, politicians and residents along the coast are fed up with BP’s failures to stop the oil, and the anger has turned toward Obama and his administration. Polls show the public is souring on their handling of the catastrophe.

On Wednesday, the Coast Guard pulled commercial fishing boats from oil cleanup efforts in Breton Sound off the Louisiana coast after several people became ill. Crew members on three vessels reported nausea, dizziness, headaches and chest pains, the Coast Guard said. Four people were hospitalized, including one who was flown to a hospital.

If the top kill fails, BP says it has several backup plans, including sealing the well’s blowout preventer with a smaller cap, which would contain the oil. An earlier attempt to cap the blowout preventer failed. BP could also try a “junk shot” — shooting golf balls and other debris into the blowout preventer to clog it up — during the top kill process.

The only permanent solution is drilling a second well, but that will take a couple of months.

Though the spill is now the biggest in U.S. history, it’s not the biggest ever in the Gulf. An offshore drilling rig in Mexican waters — the Ixtoc I — blew up in June 1979, releasing 140 million gallons of oil.

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myfoxtampabay.com