Piper football struggles on national stage, falls in Broward Showcase debut

Off the success of last year’s 9-1 regular season and playoff run to the regional semifinals, Sunrise Piper emerged as a much bigger player in the arena of big-time Broward programs.

The end result was a first-ever invite to participate in the prestigious Broward County National Football Showcase, a series of opening weekend games pitting the top schools from Broward against out-of-town powers.

But the Bengals learned a hard lesson on Thursday afternoon. Taking on traditional power Peachtree Ridge (from Suwanee, Georgia), in the opening game of the Showcase, Piper discovered that it may not quite be ready to hang on the national stage with some of the other big-shot programs just yet.

The Bengals saw an early 6-0 lead quickly vanish as Peachtree scored 31 unanswered points after that to stick Piper with a decidedly lopsided 31-6 defeat at Dillard High School in Fort Lauderdale. Things only got worse for Broward later in the evening when Jacksonville Bolles routed Coconut Creek Monarch 34-15.

“I guess this is all part of a growing process,” said Piper coach Quenten Short after the game. “This is Year three for us building this thing and to get on this stage in year three is a great accomplishment. But now we have to able to perform when we get here and that obviously didn’t happen today.”

The Bengals certainly didn’t act like a team with any kind of stage fright as they actually came out and dominated the first quarter and a half.

Led by freshman quarterback Maks Stuber and running back Jahnard Young, Piper drove 80 yards in 11 plays on its opening possession and took the lead when Young skirted around the right side for a 22-yard score. The drive was kept alive when Short gambled and on fourth-and-five from midfield. That’s when Young, who was the upback in punt formation, took a direct snap and rambled 23 yards up the middle to the Peachtree 30 before scoring three plays later.

“We got off to that great start and really felt good early on,” said Young who finished with 63 yards on 11 carries.. “But then everything fell apart after that. Today was really disappointing but we feel like we can learn from this. It was fun to be able to play on this kind of a big stage because it was all new to us. But you have to come out and perform for four quarters and we didn’t do that.”

But the Bengals had three more chances to build on that 6-0 lead and looked back regretfully after the game an opportunity lost.

The first play after Young’s score, Peachtree quarterback RayShaun Parks lost his grip on the ball as he went back to throw and Jaidan Watson pounced on the loose ball at the Lions 14.

On the very next play, the first play of the second quarter, Stuber had Young wide open for a touchdown in the left flat. While Young managed to reach up and make a great one-handed catch, he couldn’t stay on his feet and fell down at the five. Three plays later, facing fourth-and-four at the eight, Young was stopped a yard short of the first down.

On the next series, Piper cornerback Alex Gammage jumped an out route, picked off Parks pass at midfield and had nothing but green field in front of him to the end zone. But he stumbled after securing the ball and the Bengals went three-and-out on their next offensive series.

After Peachtree took a 7-6 lead on a 42-yard strike from Parks to Kobe Hokes 5:18 before halftime the Lions followed that up by picking off a Stuber pass (he finished the day 17-of-29 passing for 123 yards but threw four interceptions) and turned that into a 13-yard scoring toss from Parks to Hokes with 3:38 left.

But it was the play before that was the final killer for the Bengals. That’s when Alex Gammage picked off a Parks pass at the goal line and, after breaking several tackles, found himself in the end zone 100 yards later. But a defensive holding call on Piper nullified the play and when Peachtree scored on the next play to go up 14-6, all of the Bengals’ momentum was gone.

A quick Piper three-and-out gave the Lions the ball at their own 43 with 2:37 left and Parks quickly moved them down the field. With less than a minute left, he tossed a perfectly executed screen pass to Sedric Addison who rambled to the end zone untouched for a 38-yard score to make it 21-6 at the half.

Peachtree quickly came out and added a field goal and 15-yard Parks-to-Christian Campbell touchdown pass midway through the third quarter to complete the scoring as the Bengals managed just 75 yards of total offense and three first downs in the second half.

“We certainly had some opportunities early to go up a couple scores and instead wound up falling behind by a couple scores,” said Short. “Credit to them (Peachtree) though, they made the plays and we did not and that’s what it comes down to in a game like this. Your playmakers have to make plays. We had opportunities to do it and we didn’t get it done and that’s disappointing.”