CRYSTAL RIVER – On Friday night, Central’s football team played its most important game in roughly a decade. Yet the Bears may have produced their worst performance of the season.
Host Crystal River managed to do what no team had, bottling up the state’s leading rusher De’Vonta Smith, and rolled to a shockingly lopsided 36-0 victory.
“We just got beat. Physically we got beat. They came out and played really hard. All the credit to their guys,” Central head coach Chris Sands said. “When you get beat up front both sides of the ball, you’re going to lose the game, and that’s what happened tonight.
“It wasn’t really De’Vonta, it was our offensive line getting beat. We pride our offense on running the ball and when we’re getting beat up front, when De’Vonta has nowhere to go, he’s not going to rush for his 500 yards like he does every week.”
This Class 5A, District 7 matchup mattered so much because it will most likely determine the district runner-up. While Nature Coast remains unbeaten and in firm control of the top spot, the Bears and Pirates entered Friday’s contest tied for second in the district at 3-1.
For Central (4-3), it was an opportunity to line itself up for the program’s first playoff berth since 2006. The Bears also had momentum on their side, winning three in a row behind the excellence of Smith, who rushed for 491, 384 and 425 yards respectively while scoring a combined 17 touchdowns.
Before Friday, Smith was pacing the state with both 1,942 rushing yards and 25 touchdowns. But he managed just 91 yards on his 28 attempts versus the Pirates (4-3) and was kept out of the end zone for the first time all year.
This marked the first time Smith was held under 100 yards since Week 2 of the 2015 campaign, and only the second time in his past 20 games going back to his sophomore season.
“Our defense has played well. Coach (Randy) Wardlow put together a great defensive game plan. Our kids executed it,” Crystal River head coach Tony Lewis said. “We knew we had to stop their tailback to be successful. We wanted them to throw the football. It felt like if we could get them to throw the football, then we could make plays on the ball.
“We knew we had to gang tackle him and we had a lot of guys to the football. For that good a running back, to hold him to 80 yards, it’s a great tribute to Coach Wardlow and our staff.”
Meanwhile, the Pirates’ Tyrek Scriven totaled 211 yards and three touchdowns on just 10 carries, and also had three interceptions as a defensive back.
Crystal River set the tone right out of the gate, limiting Smith to one yard on five carries on the game’s opening possession, though he did have a 17-yard reception for a first down.
Still, the Pirates forced the Bears to punt, and on their first offensive snap Scriven took it to the house from 61 yards out on a burst up the middle.
He ended Central’s second drive with his first interception that put Crystal River just four yards from the end zone, and quarterback DeAndre Parker cashed in on a 1-yard sneak to make it 14-0 at 5:05 in the first quarter.
Scriven tacked on a 37-yard score at 9:15 in the second, though the point-after attempt was blocked. He found his way into the open field again for a 63-yard touchdown with 4:21 to go before halftime. The Pirates misfired on a 2-point attempt to leave it 26-0, the score at the intermission.
Parker connected on a 43-yard pass to Jake Fouke, setting up Parker’s second 1-yard touchdown plunge as 5:32 remained in the third, and Crystal River forced an intentional grounding in the end zone at 3:55 in the quarter to initiate a running clock.
Some of the Bears’ defensive woes can be attributed to the absence of senior middle linebacker Josh Rivera, who broke his hand in practice during the week and could be done for the season. He still leads the team in tackles with 69, including 17 for a loss, and leaves a massive void for Central.
“It’s disappointing for the way our kids came out and didn’t play physical,” Sands said. “We played physical all year, and to come out here and not play physical, it hurts. And it hurts the kids more than it hurts us. They’re pretty upset right now. We’ve just got to regroup and be ready for next week.”
Follow Chris Bernhardt Jr. on Twitter @cpbernhardtjr.