Western shuts out Coconut Creek but strives for more consistency on offense
The positives Friday night were obvious to Adam Ratkevich.
His Western Wildcats were stout on defense and special teams while making enough plays on offense to come away with a 23-0 win over Coconut Creek.
The negative, in Ratkevich’s eyes: His Western Wildcats probably should have won by a lot more.
“We shot ourselves in the foot,” Ratkevich said.
Of the Wildcats’ eight offensive drives, just two ended in points — a seven-play, 79-yard drive capped by a 19-yard rushing touchdown from Nelson Walker in the second quarter to open scoring and a seven-play, 30-yard drive capped by a 7-yard pass from Collin Hurst to Tyreik Thrope with 3:55 left to play. Thrope also returned a punt for a touchdown.
The other six drives? Three ended in turnovers. One ended in a turnover on downs in the red zone. Another stalled at the 23-yard line to close out the first half. The last one ended due to a second fourth-quarter lightning delay one play after Western recovered an onside kick. The game was called with 3:23 left on the clock.
“We could have had a much sharper performance,” Ratkevich said. “The only thing that stopped us was ourselves.”
The offensive performance reminded Ratkevich of the Wildcats’ game two weeks ago against St. Thomas Aquinas, a 31-21 loss. Western turned the ball over five times in that game.
“Too many little mental mistakes for us to perform at our peak,” Ratkevich said, “but we’ll coach it up and clean it up.”
Unlike the Aquinas game, though, Western’s defense held firm on Friday. Coconut Creek punted on each of its first three drives and Western forced an interception in the red zone on the fourth to go into halftime with a 16-0 lead. Creek turned the ball over on downs twice and punted once on its three second-half drives.
“At the end of the day,” Ratkevich said, “it’s much better to be correcting a win from the standpoint of a shutout victory.”
Mother Nature also played a factor in the offense’s performance late. Western was driving midway through the fourth quarter, with Hurst completing a 28-yard pass to Jullian Lewis to get to the Coconut Creek 33-yard line before the game went into a 40-minute lightning delay with 9:16 left on the clock.
When the game resumed, the Wildcats drove down to the Cougars’ 8-yard line before a botched snap resulted in a fumble. Coconut Creek recovered.
After Western’s defense forced a turnover on down four plays later, the offense took advantage of the short field, with Hurst throwing a 7-yard touchdown pass to Thrope over the middle of the field on fourth and goal to go up 23-0 with 3:55 left to play.
A successful onside kick attempt gave Western the ball back before lightning again interrupted — and ultimately ended — play.
“It’s frustrating,” Ratkevich said. “We’ve had weather delays pretty much every game this year. We lost half of a game basically against Fort Lauderdale because of that. It slows down momentum. As a coach, it’s your job to coach kids up and keep their minds right, but it slows down momentum. There’s a good chance after the onside kick that we could have driven and scored again and at that point, we would be feeling a lot better about the offensive performance.”
Western improves to 4-2 on the season, with its lone losses coming against defending state champions Chaminade-Madonna (30-13 on Aug. 27) and St. Thomas Aquinas. Western has outscored opponents
Coconut Creek falls to 4-2.
▪ Jacksonville Trinity Christian 27, Plantation American Heritage 14: The Patriots turned the ball over three times in the first half and never recovered in a road loss to the Conquerors in a battle of defending state champions. American Heritage is now 2-3 on the season and has given up at least 20 points to all five teams it has faced this season.
▪ Niceville 21, Edison 14: The Red Raiders took a 14-7 lead into halftime but gave up two touchdowns in the second half to Niceville, which is 7-0 on the season. The loss snaps Edison’s three-game win streak and drops the Red Raiders to 3-2 on the season.
This story was originally published October 8, 2021 at 11:46 PM.
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