By Michael Bielecki
VERO BEACH — In a rare Saturday game, St. Edwards hosts Princeton Christian at 5 p.m. with both teams coming off resounding losses.
The Panthers (0-1) come to town after a bye week, looking to forget about their 56-8 loss against First Baptist Academy. The Pirates (2-3) have some forgetting of their own to do, coming off last week’s 52-10 debacle in Melbourne to Florida Air Academy.
Princeton fields a small team much like SES (18 players), but only has four seniors (compared to 11 for the Pirates). With starting running back Kollin Kite and a host of other recovering from injury, Princeton could present a challenge for St. Ed’s.
“We’ve really caught the injury bug the past few weeks,” said Pirates Coach Brad Fojtik. “The team is still feeling the effects of playing against two physically superior football teams. We have a small handful of guys who will be game time decisions with their playing status, but our trainer is really good taking care of them.”
Key players Cameron Budde, Chris Barbato, and John Kim are amongst the walking wounded, and their status is to be determined Saturday. Even with a depleted roster, the Pirates still have some playmakers that can make life difficult for the Panthers.
“We’ve had to shuffle some players around recently, and we’ve put our best players in positions where they can have the biggest impact on the game,” said Fojtik. “Our players worked too hard in the off-season to just roll over and die. Players like Michael Lamos and Collier Proctor insure this team is still formidable, and they will show up on Saturday and play hard.”
Princeton Christian gained less than 100 yards of offense in their lone game this year. The visitors will still be completely outmanned on Saturday, in spite of the injuries to St. Ed’s personnel. The Pirates probably won’t dominate, but they should certainly beat this team by two scores.
