The Port Charlotte Pirates made history as they traveled to Orlando for their first-ever state semifinal game. The team faced off against Jones High School in what was a monumental moment for the school.<\/p>\n
WINK News reporter Lauren Halpern reported from the sidelines, noting the athletes’ incredible focus. Quarterback Logan Flaherty shared that the team played gospel music in the locker room before the game, emphasizing their seriousness about winning.<\/p>\n
“They’re really disciplined, we’re really disciplined,” said Flaherty. “Like, it’s going to be a dogfight tonight and it’s going to come down to who’s going to bring their best game.”<\/p>\n
Head Coach Jordan Ingman expressed excitement about the team’s preparation, highlighting their best week of practice.<\/p>\n
“It was really exciting to see them not be complacent with winning the region and being excited about the moment to play for a state championship,” said Ingman.<\/p>\n
Assistant Coach Jarret Debus attributed the team’s success to their unity and long-standing history together.<\/p>\n
“Luck goes to guys who play together for a long time,” said Debus. “So I think that’s what kind of is different is kind of the cohesiveness with this group and just kind of their history together.”<\/p>\n
The game saw an early back-and-forth with Jones opening the scoring, but Port Charlotte quickly responded to tie it at 7. Despite moments of momentum for the Pirates, Jones led 21-17 at halftime.<\/p>\n
The Pirates’ journey ended with a 35-23 loss, marking the end of their historic season. Emotions ran high as players and coaches gathered at midfield, sharing a moment of prayer with the Jones team.<\/p>\n
“Everybody said, enjoy the moment. I couldn’t, you know, we were here to win tonight,” said Ingman. “We weren’t here to prove that we belong on the stage. We were here to win. But you can’t help but be proud of these kids… They’re just a special crew, and they’ve done it right.”<\/p>\n
Despite the loss, the pride and bond built by the Pirates this season are expected to leave a lasting legacy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Port Charlotte Pirates made history as they traveled to Orlando for their first-ever state semifinal game. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73378,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[28,41924,139,141,140,14483,41923],"class_list":["post-73377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-florida","tag-jones-high-school","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-port-charlotte","tag-port-charlotte-high-school"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73377","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=73377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}