Norland football beats Mater Academy. Is it enough for a playoff berth?

In past years, a regular season finale between Norland and Mater Academy might’ve been nothing more than a meaningless game for teams who did not finish as district runnerups, thus not headed to the postseason.

But, thanks to the state’s new point system adopted a year ago, that wasn’t the case on Thursday afternoon. Norland and Mater, two teams on the playoff bubble in Region 4-6A and Region 4-7A, respectively squared off with hopes of it not being their last game.

When it was over, the team that “really” needed the game, Norland, got it when the Vikings defeated Mater 21-6 at Milander Stadium. The reason? Norland entered the final weekend of action on the outside looking in, seeded No. 10 with a 35.11 point average, trailing No. 8 New Smyrna Beach (35.78) and No. 9 Jensen Beach (35.22).

Now the Vikings, who finished 4-6 and were buoyed point-wise thanks to being in the same district with Carol City and Central, will have to play the waiting game. Once the dust settles from all of the games around the state, the FHSAA will release its final numbers and playoff pairings on Sunday at noon.

Meanwhile the Lions, who finished 6-4 and entered the week on the inside of the bubble tied for the No. 7 and 8 spots with South Miami at 37.67, just barely ahead of a pair of Palm Beach teams (Palm Beach Lakes, 37.44 and Forest Hill 36.89) along with one Broward team, West Broward at 36.67, will wait for Sunday as well to see if they did enough to hang on.

“I guess I’m going to have to be a mathematician now,” said smiling Norland head coach Daryle Heidelburg who said Jensen Beach losing to Martin County on Friday night would be very important. “We did our part today, now we’ll have to wait and see if that’s enough. We struggled on offense today without Deon in there but our defense did a great job of shutting them down.”

Heidelburg referred to his starting quarterback Deon Jones who went down with a high ankle sprain late in the game in last week’s loss to Northwestern.

Backup Tayari Sherwood struggled for most of the day but did manage to toss up a Hail Mary pass at the end of the first half and Anthony Johnson was on the other end for a 35-yard score to make it 21-6 at the half which was followed by a scoreless second half in which both teams were offensively challenged.

The Vikings defense was led by Larry Smith who registered a 45-yard scoop and score fumble return in the second quarter that made it 14-6 along with Johnson and Rodney Bordes who each had an interception as Mater managed just 45 yards of total offense and two first downs in the second half.

“At the very least, whether we make the postseason or not, we finished on a positive note,” said Heidelburg. “We won four of our last six games (after an 0-4 start) while getting to play a lot of JV kids to try and help build this thing for the future.”