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East Lake Tops Ridgewood

Eagles 17, Rams 13

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By Eric Horchy | The Suncoast News

Published: August 30, 2008

EAST LAKE - After nearly having Friday night's preseason Kickoff Classic suspended due to lightning, East Lake High managed to outlast Ridgewood High 17-13.

East Lake junior varsity running back Omar Wilburn got the Eagles on the board early with a 41-yard scamper about six minutes into the game.

Both schools' JV squads played the first quarter.

While the offenses struggled through some of the sloppy play that is expected during these initial games, each began to show signs of what they are capable of as the contest wore on.

Running back Billy Byrne broke off a 51-yard touchdown run for East Lake to start the second half.

The Ridgewood passing attack began to come together in the second half as well, with quarterback Jimmy Mattos hitting receiver Jon Balk for two scores. The first came on a quick, 4-yard slant in the end zone near the end of the third quarter. The second was with 11:43 left in the game when Balk got behind two East Lake defenders for a 34-yard strike to make the score 17-13.

The Rams made one more late push to try and grab their first lead. Tommy Kinder picked off an errant pass from East Lake's Matthew McKenna and returned it into the Eagles' territory.

Ridgewood wound up with a fourth-and-19 and went for it with only 0:22 seconds remaining, but Scott Kujak's pass down the sideline was overthrown and intercepted by T.J. Herman to ice the game.

Despite a few turnovers, Rams' head coach Chris Taylor said he was pleased with what he saw out of his offensive attack as the game progressed.

"What really impressed me was our offense in the second half," he said. "I think our execution got a lot better, but we're still really young."

"We wanted to come in and see if we could hang with (East Lake) and compete with them and see how tough we were with a bunch of young kids."

East Lake head coach Bob Hudson also expressed optimism heading into next week's opener, saying his offensive line play and running game, among other things, look to be ready.

"There was more good than bad," he said. "We had success doing some things and maybe in a normal game situation I would have stuck with that stuff more."

"But in preseason, we need to get a look at a lot of things."

Next Friday marks Week 1 for most schools. Both East Lake and Ridgewood start their seasons on the road. The Eagles will head to Largo, who beat them in the first round of last year's Class 5A state playoffs, and the Rams will open in Hudson.

Eric Horchy can be reached at 727-815-1071 or ehorchy@suncoastnews.com

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