BROOKSVILLE – Last season, Nature Coast’s football season played out like a highlight reel of dazzling touchdown runs by DeShawn Smith.
On Thursday night in front of a television audience on Bright House Sports Network, the Sharks showed that they still have plenty of big-play potential in their backfield.
Facing county-rival Central in the first Class 5A, District 7 contest for both squads, Nature Coast boasted a pair of 200-yard rushers and scored eight touchdowns on the ground, including six on runs of 34 yards or more, in a 59-20 victory.
“There were a couple of things we saw on film we thought we could take advantage of, and we got what we thought we’d get in the formations,” Nature Coast head coach Justin Worden said. “And it’s really rare that we get what we think we’re going to get. We get a lot of people that’ll move bodies around and stuff, and for once we got what we thought we were going to get.
“So our kids were really familiar with it, we’ve been working it all week, and then they did a good job blocking at the point of attack.”
T.J. Owens and quarterback Brian Haygood were the primary components in Nature Coast (3-0) amassing 579 total rushing yards on 30 attempts, or an amazing 19.3 yards per carry.
For the senior Owens, coming off a 169-yard, two-touchdown effort against his former Springstead team the previous Friday, he ran the ball just seven times yet piled up 207 yards and three scores.
On his second carry, he burst up the middle and ran 55 yards untouched for the Sharks’ second touchdown at the 6:42 mark of the first quarter. He added a 71-yarder in the first minute of the second, and went 34 yards to the end zone with 5:17 left in the opening half. That would end up being his last rushing attempt.
“The O-line stepped up and blocked excellent. I’d like to thank God, too. But yeah, we did pretty good,” Owens said. “Coach Worden comes up with plays and we just do what we have to do.
“A lot of people said DeShawn this, DeShawn that. DeShawn’s a great athlete, but this is the 2016 team. We’ve got a lot of weapons.”
That includes the senior under center, Haygood. He scored from 15 yards out early in the first quarter, then added an 86-yard sprint in the open field for a touchdown as time expired in the half.
Within 25 seconds of the third quarter, Haygood chipped in a 10-yard touchdown, and a 2-point run by Willie Coffey made it 49-14 and initiated a running clock.
Haygood scored one more time in the final two minutes of the third, this time on a 46-yard dash despite fumbling the snap. That last run gave him 201 yards on 14 carries to go along with the four touchdowns.
“Just our O-linemen. They did their thing. When they open the hole, it’s my job to hit it and score,” Haygood said. “We were really fired up, because a lot of teams around the county, they do a lot of talking. We just close our mouths and we just go out here and do our thing. That’s all we do, we just play.
“I feel like we made a statement around the county, so the rest of the teams know. But we’ve just got to keep bringing it. We’ve got to get better and better.”
Even the power back Coffey got in on the act, producing a 70-yard touchdown late in the second quarter and a 43-yard run to set up Haygood’s third score.
For Central (1-2), De’Vonta Smith put on a show of his own with 228 yards on 27 carries, and three touchdowns. He had scoring runs of 62 and 70 yards, and took an Izzy Zena pass 42 yards to the house late in the game.
But the Sharks’ onslaught was simply too much for Smith and the Bears to overcome. In a bizarre sequence, Nature Coast’s Kyle Pierce hit on a 21-yard field goal with no time left after Central had called a timeout with two seconds to go, then roughed Pierce on a failed 27-yard try.
“Someone was saying we’ve got Mike (Weston) and Coffey to wear people down, and then T.J. and Haygood to throw those knockout blows,” Worden said. “We’re still trying to find our way 100 percent, but we’re mixing it back and forth and trying to find the right people to put in the right spots. So we’re coming along.
“We’re getting there, but we’ve got a ways to go. We’ve got a lot of games to play before we start feeling like last year.”
Follow Chris Bernhardt Jr. on Twitter @cpbernhardtjr.