PHOTOS: Ocoee football beats Evans 16-0 in new coach's debut | Observer Preps

The Ocoee football team overcame a slow first half to beat the visiting Evans Trojans 16-0 in Aaron Sheppard’s debut as head coach for the Knights.

“Discipline,” Sheppard said,  describing what allowed his team to take over in the second half. “In the first half we played decent, but we just had self inflicted wounds — we kept making mistakes. We honed it down and got to being disciplined.”

Rising junior Dexter Rentz opened the scoring for Ocoee with a 30-yard touchdown run.

He would follow that up with a successful two-point conversion pass to put the Knights up 8-0 with 9:02 left in the third quarter.

Later in the third quarter, rising junior Tyrese Taylor extended Ocoee's lead on a four-yard touchdown run. The Knights found success on another two-point conversion to go up 16-0 with 1:47 remaining in the third quarter.

Defensively, the Knights forced three turnovers in the second half and four turnovers, overall, for the game.

With the win, Ocoee wraps up its first spring season under Sheppard. While the Knights' new coach feels his team will be fine come the fall, there are still areas where he feels the team needs to improve.

“(We) still got some discipline issues, as far as small discipline issues,” Sheppard said. "(Jumping) offsides, not being focused — but we’ll be okay.”