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Raiders' Playoff Hopes Riding On Contest With Hungry Wolves

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By DAREK SHARP, The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 17, 2007

PLANT CITY - A second straight district championship is within reach for the Plant City High football team. It can't happen this week, but there's plenty to play for Thursday night.

Plant City hosts Newsome knowing a win virtually guarantees the Raiders a second straight trip to the playoffs. Technically, to qualify, the Raiders must win and also have Bloomingdale lose to East Bay in Gibsonton.

Newsome and Plant City play at 7:30 p.m. at Raider Stadium. Most Hillsborough County teams are playing Thursday because school is out Friday.

The Wolves come in with a major sense of desperation.

Through two weeks of District 5A-7 competition, Plant City and Brandon are 2-0. Newsome is 1-1 after to a lopsided loss to Brandon, 34-0.

As bad as that result was for Newsome, it is still in the hunt for a playoff spot - but the team must defeat Plant City to have any chance.

Plant City will try to jump on Newsome early. In the Brandon game, Newsome had two interceptions run back for scores and it was 13-0 just a few minutes into the game.

'Newsome is very tough, despite what happened in that game,' Raider head coach Kevin Kelley said. Newsome has nondistrict wins over Jesuit and Durant this season, and a strong freshman running back in Conner Powers.

From the Raiders' standpoint, the only way a win Thursday does not put them in the playoffs is if Bloomingdale not only beats East Bay, but follows that up with wins over Brandon and Newsome. That would require Bloomingdale, a team that has two wins total the last two seasons, to come up with three in a row.

Should the Raiders slip up against Newsome, they could make the playoffs and possibly win the district. The latter would require a defeat of Brandon. In either case, Plant City may find itself in the less-than-preferred district tiebreaker situation.

Beating Newsome would turn Plant City's Nov. 2 game at Brandon into a showdown for the two 5A-7 playoff spots. The winner would be district champ and the loser would be the runner-up, having to hit the road for at least the first playoff round.

'Brandon's putting up some big numbers and they have a lot of guys that can hurt you. These are going to be a couple of tough games,' Kelley said.

Reporter Darek Sharp can be reached at dsharp@tampa trib.com.

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