Friday night’s preseason matchup between the Clearwater Central Catholic Marauders and the Countryside Cougars featured two teams that have been going in opposite directions recently.
CCC has made the playoffs for three straight years and is coming off a stellar 2013 season in which it went 11-3 and made it all the way to the 3A state championship game.
Countryside, meanwhile, has experienced a lot of turmoil since posting back-to-back undefeated regular seasons in 2010 and 2011; in 2012 the Cougars were forced to forfeit six wins, causing them to miss the playoffs. And head coach Jared Davis unexpectedly resigned this past January following a 6-4 campaign in 2013.
But as is the case with all preseason games, with a new season comes new hope. And although the Marauders came away with the 43-35 victory in the 2014 Kickoff Classic, thanks to a huge game by quarterback Jeff Smith, both head coaches were pretty pleased with the level of play their teams exhibited.
“It was two really good offenses going at each other, and probably a little bit of inexperience on defense on both sides,” CCC head coach John Davis said.
“It wasn’t pretty, but we’ll take the win.”
“For a preseason game it was actually pretty intense,” new Countryside head man Eric Schmitz said. “This was a really good game to have right off the get-go to prepare us for the regular season.”
Countryside actually dominated most of the first half, as starting quarterback Trent Chmelik led his team to a 21-13 lead at halftime on the strength of 13-17 passing for 136 yards and a touchdown pass to Chris Ryan.
But CCC came out of the gate like gangbusters to start the third quarter, with Smith leading the way.
The senior, who has verbally committed to Boston College, used his legs to push the Cougars defense down the field on the opening drive, ripping off runs of 12, 10 and then a 35-yard scoring play to pull the Marauders to within one point, 21-20, two minutes into the half.
Countryside quickly countered with a 6-play, two-minute drive of its own, with Chmelik (18-26, 204 yds) matching his counterpart with a 9-yard scoring run.
After trading scores again, CCC scored the final two touchdowns of the game on a 10-yard run by Scott DePergola and a 37-yard scamper by Smith, and when Ryan fumbled near the goal line with less than two minutes to play, the Marauders had the win over their crosstown rivals.
Smith, who finished with 236 yards rushing and three touchdowns to go along with 75 yard passing, said afterwards the game felt like anything but a preseason contest.
“This is a huge rivalry, there was a lot of talk on Twitter this week, so we really wanted to come out and beat them,” he said. “It felt like a state championship game.”