PALM BEACH GARDENS — Pahokee High quarterback Xavier Mitchell has a simple approach to football.
“I see what the defense is looking like and I pick it apart,” he said. “That’s just what I do.”
Mitchell, a senior, has rarely picked a team apart the way he did Sept. 19 against Palm Beach Gardens. He accounted for 369 yards and four touchdowns — two passing and two rushing — to lead the Blue Devils to a 41-21 victory in a non-district game.
“It felt really easy out there,” Mitchell said. “It felt like a regular practice.”
Mitchell was virtually unstoppable in the first half, doing his best Lamar Jackson impression in leading Pahokee (4-1) to a 27-0 halftime lead.
After Willie Fitzgerald returned the opening kickoff 75 yards, Mitchell threw a 32-yard touchdown pass to Antoine Lawrence just 90 seconds into the game.
Early in the second quarter, a short punt and a penalty allowed the Blue Devils to start from the Gators’ 26-yard line. On the first play, Mitchell dropped back, scanned the field, found no receivers open and took off running, finding an open lane to the end zone to make it 14-0.
Mitchell showed his versatility on Pahokee’s next possession, completing passes of 22 and 20 yards to senior wide receiver Kamari Foreman to set up his own 21-yard scoring run. This one came on a designed play, with Mitchell faking a handoff to senior running back Samuel Arnold, rolling right and running untouched to the end zone.
“He’s a track guy, a hurdler, so he can run,” Blue Devils coach Carlos Lammons Jr. said. “We’d rather him not, but he can definitely do that.”
Asked about his running, Mitchell said, “I enjoy it a lot. You’ve got to keep the defense on their feet — you can’t just sit in the pocket all game. Sometimes you aren’t going to be accounted for, and that’s what happened tonight.”
Mitchell ended the first-half scoring with a 33-yard strike to sophomore wide receiver Corian Davis.
In the second half, Gardens (1-3) figured out the best way to stop Mitchell was to keep him on the bench. He sat for most of the third quarter as the Gators controlled the ball for nearly 10 minutes, scoring on a 5-yard run by junior wide receiver Nomo Davis.
After an apparent touchdown pass from Mitchell to Arnold was nullified by a penalty, the Gators closed to 27-14 on a 21-yard TD pass from junior quarterback Jordan Johnson to senior wide receiver Brandon Garland. But the Blue Devils needed only two plays to respond, with Arnold scoring the first of his two rushing touchdowns.
Mitchell finished 11-of-17 passing for 273 yards and two touchdowns. He carried nine times for 96 yards and two TDs.
“He was being decisive with the ball, getting the ball out of his hand quick, checking down,” Lammons said. “It was one of his better games.”
Arnold, one of Palm Beach County’s leading rushers, overcame a slow start to finish with 75 yards on 13 carries. He also caught three passes for 96 yards. “Best running back in the county,” Mitchell said.
Lammons wasn’t entirely satisfied with the victory. He was disappointed that the Blue Devils’ defense allowed three second-half touchdowns, including the drive that ate up most of the third quarter. He lamented “undisciplined” play marred by penalties and mistakes.
“We’ve just got to finish games,” he said. “That game should have never come down the way it did. But it’s been a rough four or five weeks and we’re coming up on a bye week. We can clean up a lot of things.”
For Gardens coach Tyrone Higgins, the game had a familiar feel. In earlier losses to Atlantic and Jupiter, the Gators fell behind early and tried to dig their way out of big holes.
“That’s been our story for the last four or five weeks,” Higgins said. “We come out like crazy in the second half. … We need to get that same kind of energy from the start.
“We’ve played some very good teams. This week, we made less mistakes than we made last week, but we’re still not doing enough to beat good football teams. That’s what we’re going to have to be able to do in this latter half of the season. We know our issues and now we’ve just got to go fix them.”
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Pahokee quarterback Xavier Mitchell makes it look ‘really easy’ in Palm Beach Gardens win
Reporting by Rick Robb / Palm Beach Post
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
