By Gary Curreri
First-year Deerfield Beach football coach Jevon Glenn can cross one thing off his team’s bucket list.
In dominating fashion, the Bucks returned to district prominence with a convincing, 38-0 victory Friday night over visiting Piper to secure the top spot in the District 11-8a standings.
Deerfield Beach (8-1, 5-0) will tackle Cardinal Gibbons this week in its final regular season game before hosting district 12-8a runner-up Plantation in the first round of the Class 8a playoffs.
“It is a huge win bringing the championship back home to Deerfield,” Glenn said. “We wanted to make sure we took care of that first and foremost. This shows me that they will get up for the challenge.”
The Bucks, which finished 4-6 last season and missed the playoffs for only the second time since 1998 – the other time was in 2011– have outscored the opposition 300-85 and the lone blemish on the team’s record is a 33-15 loss to perennial state power Jacksonville Bolles five weeks ago.
“We came out ready to go and we are maturing,” Glenn added. “We are not as good as we are going to be and we haven’t peaked out yet. That is a thing that I am very proud of and very excited about, that we still can get better.”
Piper (8-1, 4-1) literally handed Deerfield Beach (8-1, 5-0) its first touchdown when the Bengals tried a running play on a 4th and 15 play from its own 15 on the first drive of the game.
The Bucks took over and wasted little time making it 7-0 as Giavante Evans ran for 10 yards, and one play later senior quarterback Teddrick Moffett went around left end for the score with 9:57 left in the first quarter. It was the beginning of an onslaught as Deerfield Beach made it 14-0 on the first of two touchdown runs by Kobe Farrish.
Moffett found wide receiver Cavin Ridley on a 42-yard scoring play at the end of the first half to increase the lead to 28-0. By the end of the third quarter, the Bucks had forced a running clock following a Jefferson Souza 22-yard field goal and 24-yard TD pass from Moffett to Alton Allen.
“This is a big win for us,” Ridley said. “It is a district game and we worked hard in practice. We just came to dominate and that’s what we did.”
Ridley was surprised to see Piper go for a first down early in the contest that swung the momentum.
“Respect is nothing when you are a rival team, so you have to earn your respect,” Ridley said. “So we just came out and we fought.”
Tornadoes move on
The Pompano Beach high school girls volleyball team won its Class 5a regional semifinal with a 25-17, 25-14, 25-23 victory over visiting Archbishop McCarthy on Saturday. Cassidy Bonito led the way with 31 assists, 19 digs, 9 kills and three blocks, while teammate Jasmine Souverein-Reisert added 7 kills, 5 blocks, and three digs.
