Red Knights thump Dunbar 38-6
For the seniors on the North Fort Myers football team, there have been very few opportunities over the last four years to truly celebrate.
So, you could excuse them for being a little bit joyous Thursday night after their final regular season home game. After all, the night couldn’t have been more perfect as the Red Knights forced five turnovers, kept the penalties down, and got great nights from two senior leaders as they trounced Dunbar 38-6 at Moody Field in their District 5A-14 finale.
North (4-5, 3-3 district) kept its slim chances for a playoff berth alive with the win, but it needs a lot of help. Both Cape Coral and Lemon Bay must lose Friday to force a tiebreaker.
North coach Earnest Graham said it was by far his team’s best performance this season and he couldn’t help but throw himself into the celebratory bounce house that was the Red Knight postgame huddle.
“We talked about not letting up on the season and trying to have our best game despite dropping a few games we should have won,” Graham said. “These guys gave it a great effort. We have some high quality kids here and I enjoy being with this bunch.”
That means the seniors. Jacob Duff threw for three touchdowns, Eric Russaw rushed for 109 yards on 14 carries, and sophomore Zaqaundre White overcame a rough rushing night to score three times, twice through the air.
“Our best game of the year. It can’t get better than that. It’s an unbelievable feeling. It’s crazy,” Duff said. “Emotions were high as you would expect. We got on a roll and we didn’t look back. We didn’t want it to end.”
Graham said his one regret was not starting Duff at quarterback all season in light of his play during the last several weeks.
“He’s a guy who you can use in so many ways, but I think I overthought that one. He should have been the quarterback all season,” Graham said.
Russaw scored on an 18-yard run on the game’s first possession and it was smooth sailing from there. Junior Kalib Banasiak recovered the first of two fumbles on Dunbar’s first play from scrimmage and White found the end zone to make it 14-0 late in the first quarter.
After Banasiak’s second recovery, Duff threw his first TD pass to Joseph Wilkins for North’s second TD in 25 seconds to make it 21-0.
Dunbar had two chances in the red zone to score, but didn’t capitalize as one drive stalled at the 1, leading to a 99-yard North drive highlighted by a 62-yard pass to Brandon King and finished by a 17-yard strike to White to make it 28-0.
A Deyrel Daiz fumble recovery set up an 18-play, 77-yard drive to chew up much of the third quarter and ended with Geoffrey Gentile’s 28-yard field goal to make it 31-0.
Cole Shuker recovered another fumble to set up White’s 25-yard TD catch to end the third quarter and force a running clock for the remainder of the game.
Dunbar scored on a punt return by Austin Watkins as time expired.
Banasiak’s fumble recoveries set the tone, but deflected the praise to his teammates.
“It’s a team effort. It wasn’t just me. It was the whole team, and without them we couldn’t do it,” Banasiak said. “Our goal was to have the best game of the season. We knew Dunbar is a great team with a lot of speed and we wanted to come out and play our best.”
Graham said he wouldn’t know where his team would be without the defense.
“We’ve played this way all year. They’re fast and very opportunistic and physical,” he said. “We’ve been waiting for the offense to show up and they did tonight.”
Dunbar 0 0 0 6 – 6
North FM 14 14 10 0 – 38
NFM – Russaw 18 run (Genile kick)
NFM – White 1 run (Gentile kick)
NFM – Wilkins 20 pass from Duff (Gentile kick)
NFM – White 17 pass from Duff (Gentile kick)
NFM – FG, Gentile 28
NFM – White 25 pass from Duff (Gentile kick)
D – Watkins 85 punt return (no kick)