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Zephyrhills' 1st Win 'Ugly'

By RICK HARMON

Tribune correspondent

Published: September 27, 2008

ZEPHYRHILLS – When your 0-3, a win is a win and that's the way Zephyrhills coach Tom Fisher felt following the Bulldogs' 21-9 Class 3A-8 victory against Sunlake on Friday.

"It was ugly … offensively ugly," Fisher said. "We'll just keep plugging away on offense and hopefully it will click. We work on it and work on it. Hopefully we'll get it around."

The Bulldogs (1-3, 1-0 3A-8) had no problem moving the ball on the ground – gaining 184 yards on 36 carries. But junior quarterback Tyler Guy only completed 5 of 13 passes for 59 yards and threw two interceptions. Guy played the second half with a bruised knee.

"We had a lot of penalties and put the ball on the ground a lot," Fisher said. "That's uncharacteristic of us. We did some things good that we have been doing bad but we did some things bad that we normally don't do."

Zephyrhills committed nine penalties for 65 yards and fumbled five times, losing three.

The one bright spot was the performance of Bulldogs running back Alex Paniagua, who rushed for 118 yards on 15 carries.

Zephyrhills' defense continues to play tough. Sunlake only managed 47 yards of total offense and four first downs. The Seahawks (1-2, 0-1) were held to minus-11 yards rushing and were sacked six times.

"Our defense has been playing well for three weeks," Fisher said. "We held them to a field goal and scored two touchdowns [on defense]. You can't ask for more than that."

Dontrell Parker returned a interception 85 yards for a touchdown to start the second quarter and Ryan Commadore had an 18-yard interception return TD with less than 2 minutes remaining in the game.

"We never got in sync all night on offense," Sunlake coach Bill Browning said. "And Zephyrhills' defense is very good. They gave us trouble all night. I thought our defense played will too. It was just a comedy of errors for both offenses and we made more of the errors."

Injuries continue to plague Zephyrhills. Three starters – all linemen -- are now out for the season.

"We had too many linemen shuffling in and out," Fisher said. "Too many injuries. I've never had two weeks in a row here we've had the same offensive linemen in there. You have to have an offensive line in tact if you are going to be successful."

Gage Hayes, Duke Morrison and John Dodd will miss the rest of the season. Anthony Avila and Stephen Cottrell returned this week but saw limited action.