KISSISSIMEE — Mulberry High School football went 9-2 in 2024. But all first-year head coach Davis Stephens kept thinking about was getting better in 2025.
And what better way to get better and work out the kinks than in a jamboree-style spring football game at Liberty High School on May 16. The Panthers took on two teams in one half each, which resulted in both Mulberry and Liberty High not scoring in that first game, Mulberry winning 7-6 over Tenoroc, and Liberty coming up victorious 8-0 over Tenoroc in the third and final contest.
Mulberry’s only score on the day was a sophomore quarterback Kendall Horne-to-senior receiver Jaidyn Duvalt 23-yard touchdown connection, culminating the Panthers’ first offensive drive. Still, Stephens said the program has come a long way, as it wasn’t always peaches and cream.
“(I want) to challenge them to show up. … When I first came March 10, eight players came for off-season workouts. And then we started getting players down the road. We finished with 40. It was a little discouraging. … But I had to stick with the course, stick with the process. We had a good turnout for the night,” Stephens said.
The defense looked good in both games as well, as players played opportunistically and hit hard.
“We’re real fast on defense. And we can cover up our mistakes by running to the ball with full speed, so I think our defense did pretty well tonight,” Stephens said.
For Mulberry’s third offensive drive of the game, Horne threw a pick-six to Tenoroc’s Elijah Douglass, who has a chance to be one of Tenoroc’s best and most consistent players if the singular focus is there.
“That particular play was a good play for the fact that he listened to what we were telling him on the sidelines. He wasn’t in a man coverage that time. We were in a zone coverage. So … he was able to make a play on the ball,” Tenoroc football coach Anthony Troutman said.
Stephens, though, has seen all these kinds of coverages, as he was just the defensive coordinator for Winter Haven the last two years, among other programs in the South. But this was his first game as the head coach of Mulberry.
“(I) was nervous, very nervous. (I) prayed that it turned out pretty good, and it did. And I got to understand that everything isn’t going to go our way. … But, I’ll be okay. I just got to stay the course and process, and take it one day at a time, and not get discouraged. (We want) to continue to build on the players that we do have and continue to make them great,” Stephens said.
This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Mulberry, Tenoroc football meet with Liberty for spring football game
Reporting by Robert Magobet, Lakeland Ledger / The Ledger
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
