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Raiders pull flags, take names

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By DAREK SHARP

dsharp@tampatrib.com

Published: May 6, 2009

PLANT CITY - The only team that gave Plant City High any kind of difficulty during the regular season did so again in last week's district flag football championship game.

But like the first meeting, Plant City's offense led the way in a shootout victory. Plant City defeated Armwood 34-24 to win its second consecutive District 10 championship, in a game played April 29 at Raider Stadium.

With the victory the Raiders were set to play Plant in Saturday's Florida High School Athletic Association Finals Play-In Game. The winner of that was to have played East Bay on Tuesday night.

Tuesday's winner is headed to this weekend's state quarterfinals in Boca Raton. The Raiders are hoping for a return trip and to finish one step better than last year's state runner-up finish.

For a second straight regular season Plant City went undefeated, this year being the only Hillsborough County school to do so. But Armwood, which gave the Raiders their closest game at 32-25, was clearly not intimidated in April 29's game.

"Our defense has been phenomenal, but our offense had to step up in this one," Raider coach Larry Langston said.

In fact, Plant City was only kept out of the end zone once, but by that time it had built up a 34-18 advantage. Quarterback Qwet Shaw's 45-yard touchdown run was called back by a clipping call in the second quarter, but the Raiders shook off the possible momentum switch and scored on Shaw's pass to Articia Bennett, making it 20-6.

Armwood stayed in the game right before intermission with a 35-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Chanteonna Lumpkin.

"She's very good, very fast, but our quarterback is pretty good, too," Langston said.

Plant City's defense came up with its biggest play with Collisha Walker's sack of Lumpkin to end Armwood's opening drive of the third quarter.

The only negative of the night came on that play with an ankle injury to defensive back Amy Booher, who was trying to chase down Lumpkin. After the sack Shaw completed a long pass to Samantha Wicker and then ran for an 11-yard touchdown to restore a two-score advantage.

Tekeyah Clark led the Raiders in receptions but six different Raiders caught passes from Shaw, who was almost perfect going 16-of-18 and running for 139 yards.

Armwood finished the year with a 7-3 record, two of those defeats coming to Plant City.

Twenty-four district champions make up the high school athletic association's Flag Football Finals field, with the eight survivors convening Friday in Boca Raton. The quarterfinals will be held starting at 4 p.m. On Saturday the semifinals will be conducted at 2 and 3:30 p.m. with the two survivors playing for the state championship at 7.

Last year Plant City defeated Dunedin and Jupiter before falling to Tallahassee Leon in the championship game 41-16. Leon has won the past two titles but nearly got beat in its district semifinal April 27, edging Rickards 7-6.

Plant City coasted in its first district game, 40-0 over King.

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