Because of limited stadium availability in Miami, the Greater Miami Athletic Conference is trying to secure the Orange Bowl on Saturday, Dec. 3, for a day-night state semifinal doubleheader that could include a Hillsborough County team.
By KEITH NIEBUHR, Times Staff Writer
Published November 16, 2005
If a deal is struck, a Class 4A semifinal would be played at 4 p.m. with a game between 6A teams to follow.
Three county squads - Armwood, Jefferson and Plant - and Winter Haven remain alive in the same bracket of the 4A playoffs. The team to emerge from that foursome could face nationally ranked Miami Washington in the semifinals. The 4A championship is the following week just north of Miami at Dolphins Stadium.
"No. 1, it's a facilities issue," Hillsborough County director of athletics Vernon Korhn said. "They have very few facilities there for high schools and a lot of those are down from (Hurricane Wilma) with the exception of two.
"No. 2, they're trying to put it in the Orange Bowl because they anticipate a huge crowd."
The Miami Hurricanes, who play home games at the Orange Bowl, are out of town that week. "Unless they've got some other kind of show" it should happen, said Gary Pigott of the FHSAA.
The 4A bracket has two remaining Miami teams, and four remain in the bottom half of the 6A bracket. GMAC Commissioner Cheryl Golden could not be reached for comment. Armwood coach Sean Callahan, whose team has beaten Miami Washington the past two seasons in the playoffs, said Tuesday the Hawks would welcome the opportunity to play in the Orange Bowl.
"If we take care of business (the next two weeks), it would be quite an environment," he said.
Fans of Hillsborough schools would be able to purchase tickets in advance for $7, Korhn said.
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Quietly lurking at 10-1 and growing in confidence every week, Riverview is gearing up for what arguably is the biggest game in program history. When the Sharks host Palm Beach Lakes (8-2) on Friday, it will be only the second time Riverview has played a second-round game. The last time it happened, it lost to Bradenton Southeast 46-14 five years ago.
Before this season, no Sharks squad had won more than eight games. A year ago they were 5-5.
"We looked at the schedule early on, and with games against Newsome, East Bay and Lakeland Lake Gibson we knew those three would kind of decide what kind of season we'd have," Riverview coach Dan O'Regan said.
The Sharks won all of them.
In fact, their only loss came to Brandon on a last-second field goal.
"We were sitting in January in conditioning and we knew our defense was going to be senior heavy," O'Regan said. "We had played a lot of juniors last year and even some sophomores, so we thought they would have to carry us until our offense got going because our offense was pretty young."
The defense, led by safety Nolan Ward, outside linebacker Shane Clark and inside linebacker Jason Schnayderman, has been better than expected. And the offense, behind 1,000-yard rushers Jahleel Addae and Antwain Powers, came around faster than anyone had hoped.
Today, Riverview looks like a squad that might have a few wins left in the tank.
