TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Highlands Today

Okeechobee's Pryor Torches Red Devils

Chris Hoffman/Highlands Today

Avon Park's Rashad Young is pancaked by Okeechobee's T.J. Allen (1) and Kareem Jones (11) during Friday's game.

ADVERTISEMENT

By CHRIS HOFFMAN

Highlands Today

Published: September 13, 2008

Updated:

OKEECHOBEE - Marvin Williams had just one word to describe the Okeechobee senior running back Lonnie Pryor after watching him put on a display on Friday at Brahman Stadium.

"Slippery," Williams said. "Lonnie gave us all we could handle and I thought we did a good job on him by hitting him at the line of scrimmage, but you can't hold a player like him in check for long."

Pryor, who has already committed to playing for Florida State next fall, showed off his elusiveness by rushing for a game-high 161 yards and three touchdowns in the Brahmans 44-6 victory over the Red Devils.

The soft-spoken senior was humble after the game, as he deferred the credit to God and his offensive line for his performance.

"My offensive line played hard all game and opened some huge holes for me to slip through," Pryor said. "We made some mistakes early, but we were able to recover from them and make the big plays when we needed them."

The Class 3A Red Devils (0-2) did everything they could to contain the speedy Pryor, who ran the opening kickoff back 82 yards for a touchdown, as they loaded the box to hit him at the line of scrimmage, but countless times the Okeechobee tailback would break tackles and bounce to the outside to make something out of nothing.

Red Devil head coach Andy Bonjokian was left in awe of Pryor after watching him pick apart his defense.

"Lonnie is a special kind of player that only comes along once a generation," Bonjokian said. "I told our kids that he's the best running back we'll face all season."

Doing his best to keep his team in the game, Avon Park junior Teddy Allen rushed for a team-high 120 yards and scored the first Red Devil touchdown of the season.

Allen's 120 yards are the most by an Avon Park running back in nearly two years.

Even with all of Pryor's moves, Avon Park still had plenty of chances to steal a win, but every time the Red Devils would do something good, they'd have two things go wrong.

Down 7-0, Avon Park's Stephan Hinson got the fire started for the Red Devils by picking off a pass by Okeechobee quarterback Garrett Madrigal to give the ball at the AP 31-yard line with 8:32 left to play in the half.

But Okeechobee's defense camped in the Red Devil backfield to cause a fumble and sacked sophomore quarterback Avierre Conner to force a three-and-out.

The Brahman's made the Red Devils pay for not capitalizing on the interception, as Pryor turned the corner on the right side for 25 yards and his second score of the game to cap off a six-play drive to give Okeechobee a 14-0 lead.

Avon Park came out of the locker room at half time down 21-0, but put together its best drive of the year.

The Red Devils showed that they were dedicated to the run, as Allen gained 43 yards, including runs of 13 and 12 yards to help march AP 68 yards before punching it in for the one-yard score to cut the lead down to just 15 with less than seven minutes left to play in the third.

Cooper raced down the field to recover the kickoff and Avon Park had the ball at the Okeechobee 30-yard line with a chance to cut even more into the Brahman lead.

But three plays later, Nate Pollard stepped in front of Alonzo Robertson for his second pick of the night and scampered for an 80-yard touchdown that gave the host team a 28-6 lead and stole any momentum that the Red Devils had amassed.

Okeechobee 44, Avon Park 6

AVON PARK 0 0 6 0 - 6

OKEECHOBEE 7 14 7 16 - 44

SCORING SUMMARY

First Quarter

OK - Pryor 82 kickoff return (Alan Najera kick), 11:47

Second Quarter

OK - Pryor 52 run (Alan Najera kick), 3:47

OK - Madrigal 60 pass to Fortner (Alan Najera kick), :49

Third Quarter

AP - Allen 1 run (Calero miss), 6:43

OK - Pollard 80 interception (Alan Najera kick), 5:14

Fourth Quarter

OK - Pryor 5 run (Alan Najera kick), 8:35

OK - Schoonmaker safety, 7:49

OK - Pryor 25 run (Alan Najera kick), 6:11

STATS

RUSHING: Avon Park; Allen 20-120-1, Cooper 8-33, Conner 2-1, Brown 2-10. Okeechobee; Pryor 24-161-3, Taggart 2-3, Madrigal 1-2, Givens 1-1.

PASSING: Avon Park; Conner 3-11-27-0-2, Morales 0-1. Okeechobee; Madrigal 9-12-180-1-1.

RECEIVING: Avon Park; Robertson 1-17, Cooper 1-7, Young 1-3. Okeechobee; Minando 3-89, Fortner 3-79-1, McQueen 1-8, Pryor 1-4, Everett 1-0.

Chris Hoffman can be reached at 863-386-5827 or at choffman@highlandstoday.com.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT