Blanche Ely’s hot start halted by district rival Atlantic in blowout loss

Delray Beach Atlantic turned the lights out on host Blanche Ely Friday night -- literally and figuratively.

In a battle of District 14-5A unbeatens, only the Eagles had any juice, dominating the Tigers 42-13.

This freaky Friday the 13th game had everything -- a 90-minute lightning delay, touchdowns on five straight possessions to open the game for Atlantic (4-0), multiple fights in the stands (including one that set off a gun scare false alarm), an Ely player taken off on a stretcher, over 200 yards of penalties, and an accidental blackout midway through the third quarter that made an already late night even later.

Ely (3-1) administrators had preset the stadium lights to automatically go out at 10:30 p.m., with the expectation that the game would be long over by then. But the weather issues pushed back kickoff to 8:30, and an interminably slow first half made a late night even later.

Ultimately, the grandstand lights finally came back on after 20 minutes of darkness.

But after just one play, things ground to a halt again -- for awful reasons.

On the first snap following the game’s resumption, Ely linebacker Cameron Davis suffered a scary neck injury that left him facedown on the turf for several minutes as his family and medical personnel attended to him.

Ultimately, Davis was able to sit up with his neck immobilized. He went from the field to the ambulance and then to the hospital on a stretcher.

“He’s pretty good,” said Ely coach Terence McFadden. “He didn’t want to go but he’s good. Just a little neck injury so they had to take him.”

After that, and the aforementioned fight that caused real panic and confusion among the players on the field, the only question would be whether Atlantic would lay a running clock on Ely.

They checked that box when Atlantic quarterback Lincoln Graf found Derrick Daughrity for his fifth and final touchdown pass of the night.

“Our playmakers were making plays, everybody did their job excellent today,” Graf said afterwards. “We go hard in practice and we push ourselves. And we’re not perfect by any means and we’re far from perfect, but we’re trying to get better everyday.”

It was the fourth-straight offensive explosion from the Palm Beach County contender.

Led by West Virginia commit Deandre Desinor, the Eagles scored 138 points in their first three games. That should have been a warning sign to Ely, which allowed 54 in its last two outings -- wins over Chaminade-Madonna and Stranahan.

The Tigers on Friday didn’t give their corners much safety help, and when the pass rush failed to get home, Graf made them pay time and again.

He had touchdown passes of 35, 17, 40, 14, and 4 yards Friday -- with three going to senior wide receiver James Jones.

“[We were] pretty much trying to just get pressure on the quarterback and they executed,” McFadden said.

The Tigers’ offense did not. They couldn’t match Atlantic’s firepower early, and an end zone interception by Omari McNeal late in the second quarter ended any thought of a second-half comeback.

As a result, Atlantic has the inside track on the district championship, while Ely will likely need to qualify for the playoffs as an at-large team.

“They probably kind of overlooked Atlantic and Atlantic got a good team,” McFadden said. “When you do that, you know, somebody comes out and hit you in your mouth, you gotta learn how to respond.”

He added: “Atlantic was the better team. They executed. They played a lot faster. End of the day, the best team won tonight.”