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Bishop McLaughlin Improving Despite Loss

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By RICK HARMON

Tribune correspondent

Published: September 13, 2008

LAKELAND – Bishop McLaughlin knew this season had to be better than last season's 1-9 campaign. The Hurricanes only win was against first-year Academy at the Lakes, which dropped to 6-man this year.

The Hurricanes finished the season with only 18 players and dropped out of FHSAA district competition this season. But, despite the 17-7 loss to Lakeland Santa Fe on Friday, things are much improved at the Shady Hills school.

"Last year was horrible, for lack of a better word," Hurricanes coach Marty Williams said. "I've never understood coaching to be like that in my life. It was tough. But what a credit to our school. We had 18 kids last year and we started this school year with 35. The seniors are the ones that stepped up. I'm really proud of that class."

Of the 35 on this year's roster, 15 are seniors.

The Hurricanes have lost their first two games but have been in a position to win, something they weren't in 2007. Playing in the Sunshine State Athletic Conference also will help Bishop McLaughlin.

"We left it on the field. I was really pleased with the effort of our kids," Williams said after Friday's game. "We had kids playing hurt. Jeff Pope got a busted hand and played right through it. We're just trying to get better ... and we are. But we're not over that hump yet. We just played a helluva football team."

Santa Fe coach Mike Jones agreed with Williams' thoughts of the Hurricanes.

"Bishop McLaughlin is a good team .. vastly improved from teams they've had in the past," Jones said. "This was a good test for us. Last week, nothing against them, but we played Landmark over in Haines City and they wanted to test the [Class] 1B state waters out of their Christian conference and they tried hard but they were really over matched. This is a comparable 1B team for us. It was a good match."

Santa Fe won that game 55-13 and held Landmark to minus-26 yards in the first half before substituting freely in the second half.

While Bishop McLaughlin has improved, they couldn't contain Santa Fe quarterback Kyle Campbell and couldn't put points on the board with its offense.

Campbell scored all but one of the Hawks points on two rushing touchdowns, a field goal and an extra-point kick. He rushed for 46 yards and completed 9 of 18 passes for 135 yards.

With Santa Fe leading 7-0 after Campbell's 3-yard run at the end of the first quarter, Bishop's defense got the Hurricanes on the board with a 30-yard fumble recovery for a TD by Giovanni Perone with 10:09 remaining in the first half.

Campbell kicked a 32-yard field goal with 1:47 left in the half to put the Hawks up 10-7. The score remained 10-7 until Santa Fe took advantage of the Hurricanes' only turnover of the game with 5:42 remaining in the game.

The Hawks recovered a fumble on their own 40 and eight plays later, Campbell dove in from the one for the touchdown.
"We only had one turnover so we eliminated a ton of turnovers and that was one of our objectives," Williams said.

Bishop's offense is still a work in progress. It only managed 107 total yards with Pope leading the way with 84 total yards, 67 on the ground. Quarterback Devin Towson was only 2 of 11 passes for 20 yards and was sacked three times. Seven of his passes, and one of his completions, came in the final drive of the game.

"That was intentional [lack of passing]. We were looking to break a big one [on the ground]," Williams said. "As well as our defense was playing, we always felt like we had that chance. A couple times, we were just a fingernail short of doing that. We're going to try to put [Towson] in situations where he's more successful. We talked to him about that on Thursday but obviously, you can't make a lot of changes on Thursday."

Despite the loss, Williams has a much better outlook of this season than last year.

"Offensively, we're moving the ball. We're just a dropped pass here and a step short there," he said. "You can feel the momentum is there with the kids. I couldn't be happier with the kids and the way they've come out and played since the beginning of the season, especially with the numbers problems we had last year."

Bishop McLaughlin hosts Bradenton Academy Friday in the Hurricanes' home opener.

Correspondent Rick Harmon can be reached at tampabaystringer@gmail.com

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