Hornets Fall to Seahawks in Season Opener

The Justin Bland era officially kicked off on Friday when the Weeki Wachee Hornets hosted the Sunlake Seahawks in their first game of the regular season. Unfortunately for the Green and Black, the Seahawks played spoiler for the occasion. The Hornets would show promise, but they ultimately fell to the visitors 40-22 on Friday night.

The Seahawks weathered a strong second quarter by the home team and began to pull away in the third thanks to a strong ground game. Errors would eventually doom the Hornets on Military Appreciation Night.

“I think we shot ourselves in the foot a little bit, put the defense in a short field numerous times,” said Coach Bland. “That’s probably the difference in the ball game. Turnovers, a couple bad play calls by myself – I’ll take the weight of that – just putting us in some situations that I would probably go back and not put us in […] a couple penalties here and there. I think that’s the biggest difference in the outcome of the game.”

The opening drive would see the Seahawks march down to the edge of the redzone before a fumbled handoff would give the ball to Coach Bland’s crew. After a big run to midfield by RB Leelen Wright, the drive stalled. One play into the visitors’ drive and they were already in plus territory thanks in part to a Weeki personal foul. The home team would bow up and hang on to only allow a field goal with under 3 minutes to play in the first quarter.

The Hornets’ next drive would mirror their first as they would punt the ball back to the visitors heading into the next frame. Then, when the Seahawks were facing a 4^th and 2 near midfield, Weeki Wachee jumped offsides. This miscue helped extend a drive that would end in a Sunlake rushing touchdown as the deficit deepened to 10-0.

Then, the Hornets responded with an eight-play, 76-yard touchdown drive of their own. The Seahawks would commit their fair share of errors on the night as they were called for a late hit out of bounds on a first down run by Hornets QB Richard Hanshaw. This nearly 30-yard exchange set the home team up in striking distance before a 36-yard pass from Hanshaw to WR Alex Wilson put the home team on the board and back in the game.

After turnovers and penalties by both teams within the next couple minutes of game time, the Seahawks would again find pay dirt on the ground with 1:49 left in the half. With little time left before the break, Weeki Wachee looked to respond, but Hanshaw’s pass would be picked off in the redzone with just over a minute to play. That would not be the end of the Hornets’ chances, though, as they intercepted Sunlake QB Ty Webster on the very next play and brought the ball back inside the 10 yard line. Hanshaw’s passing touchdown on 4^th and 5 brought the score to within three points.

Coach Bland would then execute his team’s second trick two-point conversion to perfection. As Wilson took the snap and drifted to the right, he threw the ball across the field and hit Hanshaw in his outstretched hands over the defender to nearly tie the game at 17-16. The aggressive play calls after the touchdowns largely mitigated the Seahawks’ extra field goal, and the Hornets’ faithful can likely look forward to much more of that type of play calling as the staff continues to gel moving forward.

“I think we put a good staff together,” Coach Bland said. “The kids responded to them pretty well. The big thing is the coaches – they coach. That makes my job a whole lot easier […] Everybody’s learning from everybody right now. I’m figuring it out as I go as well in finding out what little detailed things I may miss, may overlook as a head coach. For the most part, coaching staff is coming together well […]”

The second half would go much less smoothly for the Green and Black as the mistakes mounted and the visitors began to take control. Though the Hornets started the half with the ball, they would proceed to go three-and-out before the visitors put together a clock-chewing 13-play touchdown drive that left 3:40 on the clock in the third.

Two plays into Weeki’s next drive, Hanshaw threw an ill-advised pass-turned-interception. A one-play touchdown drive followed directly afterwards as Sunlake’s Nathan Merriman ran up the middle and cut around the outside for the score. Trailing by 15 heading into the final frame, the Hornets could fly no further. The defense surrendered their fifth touchdown on the ground to Merriman with 4 minutes left, and a bad snap on a punt tacked the final two points on the board for the visitors.

“We just got to do a better job,” the Hornets’ coach said of their struggles defending the run. “A couple of them, their guy made our guy miss in the hole. There’s not much you can do there when their athlete’s a little bit better than yours or there’s just some things you don’t have an answer for. We’ll do a better job of getting our kids in better situations, trying to teach them the fundamentals there and be able to break down and make a tackle […] We’ll coach them up this week at practice, work on those things, try to do a better job at scheming and getting an extra guy there […]”

Despite some miscues, Coach Bland is proud of his squad and is pleased with their development since the offseason. “For us to go out and score like we did and move the football offensively… defensively we fixed a lot of things,” he said. The Hornets will look to regroup and continue improving as they travel to take on the Orangewood Christian Rams on Friday.