Plant City loses flag football final

After winning its first 15 games of the season, Plant City was hurt by two costly giveaways and fell to defending champion Tallahassee Leon 41-16 in the FHSAA flag football final Saturday night in West Boca Raton.

The Raiders reached the championship game by winning a dramatic semifinal just hours earlier, 26-19 over Jupiter. In that game, quarterback/safety Quet Shaw passed for three scores and ran for another while receiver Danielle Kersey had seven catches and a touchdown.

Problem was, the Raiders had little time to rest. They played the final less than two hours later.

“The turnaround time was a little quicker than we thought,” Harris said.

Plant City led Leon 7-0, but Leon quickly evened the score and then took advantage of a Raiders turnover to go up 14-7. Another Raiders turnover also hurt, as did the fact Leon didn’t cough the ball up once.

"They were a good team," Harris said. "But I think they were beatable. We made some mistakes early in the game and against a team like Leon, you can't do that."

--KEITH NIEBUHR

Comments

The times should cover flag football all year. They don't even have it listed under other sports. That's a shame.

[The Source]

We know you're spread thin. Step it up fellas and cover this sport

Lost in the coverage was a pretty good game with Dunedin. In that game the Plant QB T Shaw did all the damage. With 20 seconds left in the first half and her team down 13-6 she went 60+ yards to swing momentum back away from the Lady Falcons. In the second half she had 2 picks, one on an ill conceived route right at her, both were returned inside the Falcon 10 and led to 12 more points. Even at that the Dunedin defense pushed them to use 4 downs and nearly stopped the first one. The Falcons suddenly found themselves down 11 with 5 minutes to go after controlling the clock for most the game. They played like they always have, promptly went the distance and cut the lead to 5 with just over 2 minutes to go. The defense, as they had most the game, shut down the Plant Offense and took possession after a punt with about a minute to go. With 3 tries to get a first at the Plant 23 it was looking like they still might pull it out but the Plant D rose to the occassion and shut down the go to players. The Falcons had won the initial toss and deferred and had an opportunity to grab control early. Plant went 3 and out on their initial drive, and the Lady Falcons promptly went the length of the field only to have a 4th and 5 dropped by a wide open receiver. Plant City's Shaw was the MVP with the long run and 2 picks for short scores, Dunedin was led by their own stellar QB Gould, V and Emily. It was a great game to watch and one that easily could have gone the other way. Congrats to Plant on getting to the final, would have been nice to have a healthy Falcon team but they have rolled with the punches and found their way to states. Great job.

[tallahassee]

beatable? 41-16 was the score