Sharks Fall in Final Seconds to Cobras

The Nature Coast Tech Sharks (3-1) suffered their first loss of the 2024 season on Friday when the Hudson Cobras (1-3) came back to win 20-19 at the Shark Tank. The visitors trailed for much of the night before wresting the lead from the home team in the final seconds. Sharks Head Coach Robert Kazmier spoke bluntly about the result after the matchup.

“I guess I’ll just have to be pretty direct about it – this is on the O-Line,” said Coach Kazmier. “We got whooped. We can’t move the ball. Defense is stuck on the field. That’s what happens. We expected to score a lot more points than that tonight. We expected to score a lot more points than that tonight, and it didn’t happen […] We gave this game away. No reason we should have lost this game.”

The team in Columbia Blue scored in the first quarter after Senior ILB Xavier Mccullough picked off Sophomore QB Christian Garrett and ran the ball all the way back to Hudson’s 10 yard line. The very next play, the offense cashed in when Junior RB Timothy “T3” Gaynor took a direct snap up the middle for the score.

Six drives later and midway through the second frame, the Sharks scored once again on a short three play drive. After two medium length runs, Junior RB Jasir Harvin bounced the ball out to the right and sprinted 47 yards to the endzone. However, with 4 out of 5 second half NCT drives consisting of only 3 plays and with Hudson orchestrating run-heavy, clock-chewing drives, this would serve to hurt the Nature Coast defense as the game wore on.

“Defense played great,” Coach Kazmier said. “They pretty much gave us the first touchdown. They just got worn down. Those linemen that play both ways were very, very tired, and having to come out of the game. So, we were having to rotate heavily. They weren’t doing anything fancy. They were more physical than us at the end of the day.”

After being up 13-0 at half, the sheer number of snaps the defense was on the field was beginning to wear on the Sharks. Eventually, the Cobras would tie the game 13-all midway through the final frame. Nature Coast responded and put together a late drive to take the lead on a 15-yard Harvin run, but they left nearly 3 minutes on the board.

On Hudson’s game-winning drive, the home team’s gassed defense surrendered a pass to RB Travis Williams Junior on 4th and 9 with 1:24 remaining. Junior QB Eddie Reiser found him again moments later for the go-ahead touchdown with seconds left on the clock.

Besides their first touchdown drive consisting of only two plays following a blocked punt, the Cobras were essentially the inverse of the Sharks in the second half. They scored all of their points after the intermission, and 3 out of their 4 drives in the final 24 minutes went for 10 plays or more. One drive, which did not even end in points, spanned nearly half of the third quarter.

“One thing that we try to talk about constantly is how do you respond to adversity. We knew we should’ve taken care of business tonight. We told them we got to take care of business, but this is Hudson. It’s a district game. The last couple years, they’ve played Nature Coast very tough,” Coach Kazmier added.

Hudson’s success against the Sharks including last season’s matchup has made them a consistently challenging draw in recent years. Despite this fact, the head coach of the Columbia Blue and Black felt “the kids were a little too confident coming into this one, and they got punched in the mouth.”

The Sharks will look to avoid making those same mistakes against Palatka next week. They will be hosting the Panthers (3-1), who are on a three-game winning streak, at 7:30 on Friday.