It was an emotional night as the Sebastian River Sharks football team opened its regular season against local rival Vero Beach in the 8th Annual Scholarship Foundation game at the Citrus Bowl in Vero Beach Friday night. Despite falling to the Fighting Indians by a final score of 35-6, the Sharks showed encouraging signs of improvement over last year’s team that finished 2-8 on the season.
The game also marked a small step forward for players and coaches who experienced tragedy earlier this month when 14-year-old team member William Shogran Jr. passed away during a start-of-season training camp on Aug. 13.
To remember Shogran, players, coaches, and thousands of fans on both sides observed a moment of silence prior to the game. As a sign of solidarity, both teams wore Shogran’s number 72 on the back of their helmets. Prior to the game on Friday, Sharks head coach Kevin Pettis knew the night would bring challenges that reached well beyond football.
“It’s going to be an emotional night for all of us, our coaching staff, our players, as well as our community,” he said. There will be another time of remembrance at the Sharks home opener on Sept. 5.
When the game started, after Vero’s MJ McGriff capped the Fighting Indians’ opening drive with a four-yard touchdown reception from quarterback Carter Stanley, the Sharks needed just one play to respond.
On Sebastian River’s first play from scrimmage, Shark’s quarterback Mavrick Pelletier connected with wide receiver Jeremy Cummings for a 77-yard touchdown to bring the Sharks to within one. However, the Sharks failed to convert the extra point after an excessive celebration penalty pushed the PAT attempt back to the 20-yard line.
The Sharks were still within reach at halftime, trailing 14-6 after McGriff scored his second TD of the night from six yards out with 2:20 remaining in the half. In the second half, depth took its toll on the Sharks as Stanley threw three more touchdown passes on consecutive drives in the third quarter to put the game out of reach.
After the game, Pettis said while depth played a big role in the final outcome of the game, overall he was happy with his team’s performance. “When they came out and warmed up, I saw that they had nearly twice as many players as we did, and I knew that on a muggy night like we had tonight, depth could be a problem for us and it was,” he said. “When we had kids cramping up at halftime, I knew it was going to be tough for us going back out there in the second half,” he said.
Pettis believes there were a lot of positives in the game his team can build from. “Overall, for the first 24 minutes I thought we accomplished what we needed to accomplish, we played hard, and did a great job,” he said. When asked about the performance of Pelletier, Pettis was happy with a lot of his offense’s performance. “We had a lot more positive than negatives, with what we were up against. I thought Maverick did a great job, I thought Emmanuel Reed and our fullbacks did a great job, we ran the ball pretty well all night,” he said. “I told our kids we still feel good about our season, it’s just one game on the schedule, it’s not the whole schedule. We just need to come in on Monday and re-group and get ready to play our game on Friday,” he said.
Pettis says fans should have a lot to look forward to at Sharks games this season. “We run a pro-style offense; we try to work towards a 50-50 balance between the run and pass. Sometimes we lean a little heavier on the running but we rely on our power running game to set up play action for us,” he said. “Along with that we will get in the shotgun formation quite a bit and throw the ball so it should be a fun offense to watch.”
While the Sharks finished last season at 2-8 Pettis believes his team is headed in the right direction. “Despite our season last year where we lost a lot of our seniors to injuries, we still had a lot of positive things happen that we can build from, he said. “We’re still a pretty young team but we do return five starters on each side of the ball, “he said.
Pettis says the success of the team on the field depends on consistency, and keeping mistakes to a minimum. “For us to win games, the key for us is to protect the football. We had too many turnovers last year so we need to improve on that,” he said. “On defense we need to eliminate explosive plays, which are plays of 30 yards or more,” he said.
“If we can pick up first downs on offense, keep our defense off the field by protecting the ball we are going to be pretty good,” he said.
The Sharks return to action Sept. 5 with their home opener against Westwood. Kickoff is scheduled for 7 p.m.
