VERO BEACH — Sporting events in general rarely live up to the hype but Friday night’s match up between the Vero Beach Fighting Indians and the Ft. Pierce Central Cobras was well worth the price of admission as both teams entered the stadium undefeated.
Vero Beach left the stadium still undefeated, beating Central 35-28 after trailing at the half.
The atmosphere at the Citrus Bowl was electric as the teams stepped onto the soggy grass of Billy Livings Field. Fighting Indians fans overflowed into the recently added west end zone bleachers and ebbed around into the visiting team’s side of the stadium.
Even so, home field advantage did not play a role in the first eleven minutes of the first quarter.
Vero won the toss but was forced to punt after only three plays. Central took advantage of a poor E.J. Pryor punt and scored on a 6-yard run by Marcus Levy with 6:18 left in the first quarter.
Three minutes later the Cobras were on the board again and a stunned Citrus Bowl crowd found themselves down 14-0.
With just 33 seconds to go in the first quarter Vero gave their fans something to cheer about when quarterback Nick Madden dumped a screen pass off to EJ Pryor for Vero’s first score.
Madden evened the score at 14 when he connected on a 52-yard touchdown pass to Charlie Miller with 6:28 to go in the second quarter.
With 48 seconds remaining before halftime, the Cobras struck again on a 1-yard touchdown run by Marcus Levy and Central took a 21-14 lead into the locker room.
“Both of these teams are good football teams,” Vero coach Lenny Jankowski said. “I’m just glad our guys never got down on themselves. We always knew we were in the game and could win it.”
One minute into the third quarter junior linebacker Cole Ripple intercepted a Cobra pass that set up a 1-yard touchdown run by Dentist Hall that tied the game at 21.
Both teams traded missed field goals of 30-plus yards to round out the remainder of the third quarter.
In the fourth quarter, Vero put together an impressive drive on the backs of Dentist Hall and EJ Pryor.
Hall capped the drive off with a one yard touchdown run to give Vero their first lead of the game with 9:38 to go.
On the ensuing kickoff Vero’s Charles Ivory delivered a hit to the Cobra’s return man that sent the Fighting Indians faithful to their feet and the ball into the arms of Ivory’s teammate Dravious Wright.
“Coach told me that if the return man doesn’t signal for a fair catch that I should go for the hit and try to make a play happen and that’s what I did,” Ivory said.
A pass interference call against Central set up a 1st and goal for Vero Beach.
With 8:19 to go in the game Madden found Charlie Miller for his second touchdown reception of the game and a 35-21 lead.
Ft. Pierce Central amped up the tension, connecting on a 38-yard touchdown pass that brought the Cobras within 7.
Then Central got the ball back, but before they could make their fairytale comeback a reality, Cobra quarterback Marcus Sigmon threw an interception to Vero’s Brad Pettigrew with 1:20 remaining in the game.
Coach Jankowski said that his team played well but there were too many mistakes.
“We had a lot of costly penalties that hurt us in some critical situations,” he said. “We have to work on making fewer mental errors.”
Vero improves to 5-0 on the season with the 35 – 28 win and Ft. Pierce Central falls to 3-1.