GALLERY: Ocoee keeps playoff hopes alive with win on Senior Night

West Orange Times & Observer
News

OCOEE — The Ocoee Knights celebrated their senior class by putting on a defensive and special teams show, defeating visiting West Port (Ocala), 28-6 — and they stayed alive in the hunt for a playoff berth in the process.

The Knights (3-3, 2-2 district) scored on defense on a fumble recovered in the endzone by Sid Vertus, on kickoff returned for a touchdown by speedster Darryl Gay and on a blocked punt that was returned for a touchdown by Jamal Holder — all within the first quarter of play.

"Tonight we found a way to win — we executed on most of our phases of the game," head coach Ben Bullock said afterward, before praising his defensive and special teams units. "We start with, we've got to play great defense ... any time you get those points off of special teams, we try to work very hard at that because we feel that is somewhere we can gain an advantage."

Ocoee's offense did get going late in the game and put together a scoring drive in the fourth quarter that was important in that it ended any comeback hopes West Port might have harbored. On that fourth quarter drive, the Knights more or less allowed senior running back Jemerh Cosby to go to work, as he rattled off several bullying runs and ended up in the endzone.

With the victory, Ocoee eclipsed its win total from 2014 and kept itself alive as a playoff hopeful in Class 7A District 4. The Knights will need some help to have a chance to snag the runner-up spot in the district, but so far as the coaching staff is concerned, it is important for the players to simply know that they still have a goal to work toward as the season approaches its home stretch.

"It's great to be able to show them this, that the process we put together is clicking ... you can see progress," Bullock said. "We're in to late October and there's still some excitement and they've still got things to play for."

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