Eagles fall in state quarterfinals

Published May 6th, 2008

By Mario Sarmento
SPORTS EDITOR

All year long, Sasha Bernard had made the big plays to lead her Atlantic High flag football team to victory, which usually started by making defenders miss with her feet.

But Friday night against Jupiter in the flag football state quarterfinals, a senior Warriors pass rusher made a key adjustment that amounted to an unheard of six sacks of Bernard – five in the second half, as Jupiter rallied from a 15-7 halftime deficit to knock off the Eagles 19-15 at West Boca Raton High.

“After halftime I realized I can’t go full blast at her, I had to slow her down,” Warriors senior rusher Lauren Cissel said. “With her juking and stuff, I couldn’t hit the corner too hard or she’d go around me and juke me out.

Once I slowed it down and figured out how to stop her, it was easy.”

On their first four possessions of the second half, the Eagles were unable to cross their own 30-yardline. And on the last two of those, Bernard’s frustration set in. Cissel knocked the ball out of her hands to stop one drive, and on the next drive a bad snap lost nine yards for the Eagles, and Bernard was sacked by Cissel on consecutive plays to end the possession.

“They weren’t moving as fast as they should be,” Eagles coach Dameon Hughes said. “Our offense was just moving slow tonight.”

While Atlantic (12-3) struggled to move the ball in the second half, Jupiter took advantage of good field position to score twice and take the lead.

After returning a short punt to the Atlantic 18-yardline, Warriors quarterback Brittany Gryzbowski completed two passes to move the Warriors (12-3) to the 1. On the next play, Gryzbowski pitched the ball to Kylie Bossie running left. She then shoveled the ball to a wide-open Erica Pino in the end zone. The two-point pass failed, and the Eagles still led 15-13 going into the fourth quarter.

The Warriors, who had won 11 straight going into the game – allowing just 44 points in that stretch – again came up with a big defensive stop, forcing Atlantic to punt from their own 16.

Jupiter returned the ball to the Eagles 21, and two plays later Gryzbowski found a streaking Bossie down the middle of the field for the go-ahead score.

“The offense was incredible, they won the game for us,” Warriors coach Billy Daniels said.

Bernard actually completed a higher percentage of passes in the second half (9-13) than in the first (12-20), but until the Eagles’ final drive, the offense couldn’t get anything going.

On the last, madcap effort, Atlantic moved the ball from its own 2-yardline with 1:29 left to the Warriors’ 19.

But on the last play of the game, Cartecia Ward was tackled after catching Bernard’s short pass over the middle at the 7-yardline, and time ran out.

Ward scored on the opening possession for the Eagles when she hauled in another short pass from Bernard and wove her way to the end zone for a 21-yard score.

After Jupiter tied the game on a 13-yard pass from Gryzbowski to Bossie, Atlantic ran a classic two-minute drill. Bernard ran for 21 yards on the drive and fired a 25-yard TD pass to Tyrani Owens. On the next play, she hit Owens in the end zone again for the two-point conversion.