ORLANDO — First-year Lake Gibson football coach Jeff George Jr. had a lot of motivation heading into the Class 5A regional quarterfinal Friday night at Edgewater High School.
After all, it was his first year, Lake Gibson hadn’t made it to the playoffs in three years and the Braves as the No. 8 seed in the bracket were playing the No. 12 team in Florida, with UConn commit Carter Emanuel at the helm.
But despite it being a competitive game in the first half, Lake Gibson fell short 33-0 to end the 2025 campaign.
“Turnovers have been our Achilles’ heel. When you let a team like this get points free, it’s not a good thing, so that’s what happened to us and that’s what defined us today,” George Jr. said.
Before the turnovers flipped the game, however, Lake Gibson made Edgewater look worse than its ranking, and had bottled up Emanuel. A few deep balls were overthrown, and a botched snap led to a Lake Gibson recovery.
Not helping the Edgewater passing game was the fact another UConn commit, senior running back Damian Moore, was out due to injury and that the Braves defense was playing outstanding and flying around the ball. On the back end, senior corners Cason Dash and TJ Hill were locking up the Edgewater receivers.
But there’s only so much the defense can do when the offense turns the ball over. Edgewater’s first touchdown came on a pick-six by Nick Collins early in the second quarter, and it got another interception from senior Christopher Clayton.
This completely swung the momentum and allowed Emanuel to score an 11-yard rushing touchdown with 3:45 left in the second, a 21-yard dart off a rollout to junior Malik Johnson with 8:05 left in the third, and a 30-yard touch touchdown pass with 2:49 left in the third. The final scoring play was another pick-six, by Saphir Miller.
Bright spots for Lake Gibson
Lake Gibson junior cornerback Jeremiah Epps intercepted Emanuel on a 2-point conversion attempt on Edgewater’s last scoring possession.
“They went for the 2-point conversion. So they did a slant, and they went back out, and I just caught the ball,” Epps said.
Additionally on defense, Lake Gibson players kept on playing hard, punching out the ball and creating turnovers.
This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Lake Gibson turnovers doom upset bid vs. No. 12 Edgewater in FHSAA football quarterfinals
Reporting by Robert Magobet, Lakeland Ledger / The Ledger
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
