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Highlands Today

Crusaders Invade Dragons' Lair

Brian Gjurgevich/Highlands Today

Lake Placid's Zach Campbell hopes for a repeat performance of his team's victory against Celebration when the Green Dragons welcome district power Tampa Catholic to Scarborough Memorial Field.

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By MARK PINSON Highlands Today

The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 26, 2008

LAKE PLACID - The schedule makers did Lake Placid a favor by giving it a bye week before tonight's Class 2A-District 5 opener against Tampa Catholic.

The Green Dragons took full advantage of the time to work on their offensive and defensive schemes in preparation for tonight's contest against a very talented Crusader squad.

"The kids have been working hard for two weeks and are fired up to play our first district game," said first-year Lake Placid coach Jason Holden. "The kids' attitudes have been great and they're starting to understand you can enjoy yourself and have some fun at practice even though you're working hard.

"Tampa Catholic is big, fast and we're going to have to be ready to play."

The Crusaders, who had some injury problems early in the season, bring a 1-2 record into tonight's game, but are healthy now and will look to light up the scoreboard with a spread offense.

"Tampa Catholic runs a spread, no-huddle offense and their quarterback has excellent pocket presence," Holden said. "He's a big kid with a great arm and is also a dangerous runner.

"They have a big offensive line, a number of fast receivers to throw too and we're going to have to play assignment football and tackle very well to try and slow them down."

The Crusaders use a 3-4 defense, but like to walk their linebackers up to the line of scrimmage to shut down the run.

Lake Placid, which rushed for 163 yards in its win over Celebration, wants to run the ball with junior tailback Caleb Jones and senior speedster Chevontray Wilson.

"We need to run the ball effectively to keep their offense off the field," said the Green Dragon coach. "We need to play sound, disciplined football and we can't afford to turn the ball over.

"Tampa Catholic has a big, fast defensive line and our misdirection plays should work if we execute our blocks and our backs hit the hole quickly."

Lake Placid is 1-1 on the season and has never beaten Tampa Catholic in seven attempts, but the Green Dragons' confidence is up after beating Celebration 29-10 two weeks ago.

"We played much better against Celebration and our confidence is high," Holden said. "Tampa Catholic is a very good team and we know we have a big challenge in front us, but that's exciting to our team.

"We're going to go out and play our best and see what happens."

Green Dragons vs. Crusaders

at Roger Scarborough Memorial Field

TONIGHT at 7:30

COST $5

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