VENICE \u2014 Cape Coral enjoyed a lead for a moment early into Friday night\u2019s game at Venice.<\/p>\n
That moment wouldn\u2019t last long.<\/p>\n
After the Seahawks led 7-0 a few minutes into the game, Venice went on to score 28 unanswered points before running away with a 63-21 victory at Powell-Davis Stadium.<\/p>\n
Venice (5-0) fell behind after freshman quarterback Mason Polley\u2019s pass to wide receiver Stephen Testa was tipped into the hands of Cape Coral defensive back King Dawson. He\u2019d run 31 yards to the house to give the road team a surprising touchdown advantage.<\/p>\n
From there, the Indians couldn\u2019t be stopped, especially on the ground.<\/p>\n
Dorien Irving-Jones tied the game with a hard-fought 20-yard rushing score before Ira Dale Jr. rumbled in for a 12-yard TD on his first carry of the game less than a minute later. With 4:56 to go in the opening quarter, Venice led 14-7.<\/p>\n
That lead would swell to 21 on Venice\u2019s next two offensive drives. Irving-Jones scored his second TD of the night (from three yards away) to make it 21-7 with 1:45 to go in the opening quarter. Early in the second quarter, Dale Jr. added his second rushing score as well, pushing the lead to 28-7 with eight minutes to play before half.<\/p>\n
After Cape Coral running back Caleb Cobb scored on a 15-yard rush to make it a 28-14 game in the second quarter, Venice put two more TDs on the board before the break.<\/p>\n
The first was Irving-Jones\u2019s third rushing score of the night with 2:50 to go. Then, Polley connected with wideout Bryce Bigelow for a 43-yard touchdown through the air, which made it a 42-14 game at halftime.<\/p>\n
In the second half, Venice forced a running clock after Dale Jr.\u2019s third rushing touchdown of the game. With 7:47 to go in the third, the Indians led 49-14.<\/p>\n
With the backups in, Venice scored two more touchdowns before the end of the game, with running back Austin Bowman scoring on a 44-yard rushing TD before quarterback Terrell Jones scoring on a one-yard QB keeper in the game\u2019s final seconds.<\/p>\n
The Indians are now 5-0 and will host Sarasota (4-1) next Friday at Powell-Davis Stadium.<\/p>\n
KEY PLAYS: An interception by Tristen Neeley deep in Cape Coral territory helped give Venice its first lead following the rushing TD by Dale Jr in the first quarter. On special teams, Bigelow had an impressive 45-yard punt return that handed the Indians good field position down to the Cape Coral 15-yard line with 2:00 to go in the first quarter. Irving-Jones made it a 21-7 game a few plays later.<\/p>\n
Defensively, the Indians forced a turnover on downs in their own red zone in the second quarter when it was 21-7. Additionally, Anthony Beckom had an interception at the end of the first half that stalled a strong Cape Coral drive as well.<\/p>\n
KEY STATS: Irving-Jones rushed for over 140 yards and three touchdowns, while Dale Jr. had close to 60 yards on the ground with three scores of his own. Freshman running back Austin Bowman had a field day in the second half, rushing for over 100 yards and a touchdown on offense, while earning an interception as a safety on the other side of the ball.<\/p>\n
In the passing game, Polley had 140 yards passing with a TD and an INT. Patton was 8-of-9 for 80 yards passing. Mike Blakely had five catches for 65 yards, while Jayvian Hoffman finished with four catches for 90 yards.<\/p>\n
WHAT IT MEANS: Venice is still undefeated and John Peacock has 200 career wins in his career.<\/p>\n
It was important to see the type of night the quarterbacks and wide receivers had with wideout Tyree Mannings Jr. sidelined. Bigelow, Blakely and Hoffman all showed they\u2019re capable of playing good football, which would compliment Venice\u2019s strong running game really well on the offensive side of the ball. If the Indians can keep the same recipe going on offense, they could still compete against a strong Raines team in a couple of weeks on the road.<\/p>\n
QUOTE: \u201cI thought both of our quarterbacks played really well [Friday]. We did a good job of catching the ball and securing it no matter who was getting the ball thrown their way. Hoffman, Blakely and Bigelow all got in a lot of action, and they all did really well [Friday].\u201d \u2014 Venice head coach John Peacock.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"VENICE \u2014 Cape Coral enjoyed a lead for a moment early into Friday night\u2019s game at Venice. That…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404349,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210,145144,160774],"class_list":["post-404348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-sun_preps","tag-venice-high-school"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404348\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}