The Wandering Disciple

Englewood, Florida: The Lemon Bay Manta Rays opened their 2018 home schedule on Friday night with a district match-up against the neighboring Desoto County Bulldogs. The Mantas were looking for their first win of the 2018 season in front of their home crowd.  But the visiting Bulldogs were also hungry as they were looking to remain undefeated in the road. Lemon Bay opened the game by forcing the Bulldogs to punt and then marching down the field to score.Senior quarterback Trevor Hedges went up the middle for a 1 yard touchdown run. A successful two point conversion gave the Manta Rays a 8-0 lead. The Manta Rays later doubled their score on a 65 yard touchdown run by Devanta Roberson and a two point conversion to make it 16-0. The Bulldogs countered with an excellent punt return by Ethan Redden that went back and forth, side to side before hitting the end zone for a touchdown. But it was called back by a costly penalty.  But with 2:04 left in the first half, the Bulldog...

North Port, Florida: The North Port Bobcats dropped their home opener against Desoto County on Friday night at the Preserve. Despite taking an early lead in the second quarter and holding Desoto to just one first down in the first half, a twenty point fourth quarter doomed the Bobcats, handing them a 20-7 loss. The Bobcats took the lead in the second quarter. The 56 yard scoring drive was capped off by quarterback Paul Balcomb scoring on a 3 yard QB keeper. The touchdown plus the extra point gave the Bobcats a 7-0 advantage heading into the locker room for halftime. The second half began much like the first half. Hard nose defense and running attack, kept the score at 7-0 until the midway through the fourth quarter. But that’s when things turned bad for the Bobcats. Th Bulldogs recovered a fumble by Antonio Washington to start the game tying scoring drive. Washington then ended the drive by throwing a 23 yard option pass to Dalton Green to tie the game. Another Bobcat turnover led to ...