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Hernando Today

Yellow Jackets' Speed, Quickness Sting Bears, 24-7

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By MARTY MILLER

Hernando Today correspondent

Published: September 13, 2008

LEESBURG - In Friday night's 24-7 loss to Leesburg, the Central Bears found out up close what a fast and quick defense can really do.

"Their defense is undersized," said Central Head Coach Cliff Lohrey about the Leesburg defense. "But they have speed and quickness. And they live and die by the blitz."

It was that quickness on defense that helped the Yellow Jackets hold Central to seven points while three big plays turned the game around for the 1-1 Jackets.

Leesburg coach Charles Nassar admitted that right now, his defense is ahead of his offense.

"The 3-3-5 defense is designed to attack and we just try to use it to our strengths," Nassar said. "It's a defense designed for smaller, faster kids."

Central, which dipped to 0-2 and faces another road game next week at Inverness-Citrus High, was held to 3-yard, first-half touchdown run by Austin Forte.

In the contest, the Bears managed 178 yards of total offense while converting only two of 13 third-down attempts. Quarterback Dallas Waugh completed 12-of-19 passes for 99 yards, but he was sacked five times and spent much of the game trying to avoid a blitzing Leesburg defenders.

Leesburg countered with 332 yards of total offense, but Central intercepted three Leesburg passes in the first half along with recovering a fumble.

Steven Read, Jose Morales and Artie Gartner collected the picks for the Bears while Kevin Grier recovered a fumble.

"I don't know how to explain this," Lohrey said. "It's just that there are a lot of things that happen in football. And right now, we're falling on the wrong side of it."

Leesburg opened the scoring in the second quarter. P. J. Foster intercepted a Central pass and two plays later quarterback Luther McDowell threw a high pass in the end zone that Dontra Matthews went up over the head of defender Jose Morales and pulled it in for a score.

Dennis Williams booted the first of his three extra points to put the Jackets up 7-0 with 10:01 left in the first half.

Later in the second quarter, Leesburg took just three plays to drive 66 yards for another score, with Jack Vicks running 30 yards for the TD. Williams hit his second PAT and Leesburg was up 14-0.

In the final minute of the first half, Central scored their only touchdown. Forte, who finished the game with 95 yards on 23 carriers, ran for 45 of the 69 yards in the Central scoring drive.

But it was a 31-yard pass completion from Waugh to Gartner that set up Forte's 3-yard scoring run.

However, in the second half, it was all Leesburg as ended up the Jackets spent most of the second half blitzing and sacking Central quarterbacks while holding the Bears to only 50 yards of total offense in the second half.

McDowell capped an eight-play, 68-yard drive by scoring on a one-yard run on a fourth down play mid-way through the third quarter. Then later in the fourth quarter, Williams closed the scoring by adding a 32-yard field goal for the Jackets.

For Lohrey, he believes that the season is still way too early for them to give up on it.

"We've just got to start playing to win from the opening kickoff," he said. "It's not the start we envisioned, but it's where we're at and we've got to come out next week ready to play."

Leesburg 24, Central 7
CEN 0 7 0 0 -- 7
LEE 0 14 7 3 -– 24

Individual Scoring:
LEE - Matthews 36 pass from McDowell (Williams kick)
LEE - Vicks 30 run (Williams kick)
CEN - Forte 3 run (Rosario kick)
LEE - McDowell 1 run (Williams kick)
LEE - FG Williams 32

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