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Tonight's games

By Times staff
Published November 3, 2006

The Skinny: Unless Ridgewood running back Byronell Arline is tackled for losses on every carry, the rushing title is his. But more importantly, the Rams really want to use this game as a springboard to next season. It worked last year, when they played the Bulldogs tough in the finale of a 1-9 season. The Bulldogs are headed to the playoffs and a little beat up, so coach Tom Fisher is expected to rest some of his key players as long as he can. But a victory clinches the Sunshine Athletic Conference title for Zephyrhills.

Land O'Lakes (8-1) at Gulf (6-3)

The Skinny: The Gators are two-thirds of the way through a brutal stretch of games that has featured wins over Gaither and Wharton. And coach John Benedetto doesn't even think his team has played nearly its best game this season. The Gators defense is beginning to step out of the shadow of the team's vaunted offense. The Bucs again will be without running back Julian Ford and linebacker Tim Longnecker, but quarterback Alton Voss is feeling good and his favorite target Shawn Williamson is coming off a career-best game.

River Ridge (0-9) at Mitchell (2-7)

The Skinny: Coach Scott Mitchell put it best: "We need a win in the worst way ...and so do they." While that may not make this a scintillating game, it certainly promises to be hotly contested. The Royal Knights may need the win more, as they try to avoid joining Gulf (1977-78), Ridgewood (1996-98) and Zephyrhills (1941-45) as county teams with consecutive 0-10 seasons. The Mustangs and QB Tate Humphrey have had their moments on offense and could finish with a bang.

Pasco (2-7) at Hernando (2-7)

The Skinny: This once-proud rivalry has fallen on hard times. Though the Pirates have won the past six meetings, does anyone care anymore? It's hard to when the past three meetings have been played between teams with losing records. The Pirates are staring a second straight 2-8 season if they can't pull one out against the Leopards, who know a little bit about close losses like the ones Pasco suffered through this year - Hernando's past four defeats have been by a total of 17 points.

John Cotey can be reached at cotey@sptimes.com or (727) 869-6261.

To report scores

Coaches are asked to call 1-800-333-7505, ext. 8123 no later than 11 p.m. each night.

On the Web

Have a question for one of our prep writers? Want to sound off in response to one of our county-by-county writers' blogs? Nominate Top Performers for the month? For this and more, check out our new high school sports blog at http://blogs.tampabay.com/preps/.

Send us your photos

Have a great photo from a game that you'd like to share with online readers? Take a picture or video with your camera phone or digital camera and e-mail it to preps@tampabay.com . Your subject line becomes the title of the photo and the body of your message becomes the caption. Files must be JPEGs and less than 700K in size. Photo galleries will be linked from high school sports page on tampabay.com.

[Last modified November 3, 2006, 07:40:19]