Blanche Ely senior quarterback Jevon Williams is a three-time state champion hurdler and he put his legs to good use as he scored twice in the first half to lead the Tigers to a come-from-behind 28-16 win over visiting Coconut Creek on Friday night.
Williams scored on two 6-yard runs to rally the Tigers (7-1) from an early, 9-0 deficit in the non-district game. Williams carried 11 times for 135 yards and three scores and threw for 100 yards as Blanche Ely won for the fifth straight game.
The Tigers took a 21-16 lead with 3:22 remaining in the first half when Shomari Lawrance scored on a 13-yard run to cap a 9-play, 63-yard drive.
The Tigers capitalized on an interception by Antonio McBride and Williams padded the lead when he scrambled for a 59-yard scoring run with 8:49 remaining in the third quarter for a 28-16 lead.
“We did well as a team and I did great,” Williams said. “We still got a lot to fix…Last year we won one game and this year we won our seventh game. It feels great to me and I am proud of this team and proud of myself as well. We got Atlantic next week and we are going to win that game as well.”
Trailing by a dozen points, Coconut Creek threatened midway through the final quarter when they took a short punt and moved 53 yards in 13 plays. The drive stalled on fourth down when Bennett was brought down on a 3-yard run at the Tigers’ 6-yard line with 5:58 left in the game.
Coconut Creek (4-4) got on the scoreboard first on a safety when Blanche Ely punter Schneider Etienne had his knee touch down in the end zone as he was attempting to punt the ball for a 2-0 Cougars’ lead.
Coconut Creek scored on its opening offensive series when Cedrick Bennett hit Damien Heller on a screen pass and he went untouched from 23 yards out for a 9-0 lead with 8:22 remaining in the first quarter.
Williams scored on a 6-yard run to trim the lead to 9-7 before the Cougars’ John Blackmon hauled in an 8-yard TD pass from Bennett to boost the lead to 16-7.
Blanche Ely closed to within 16-14 on another TD run by Williams, his second scoring run of the first half.
Blanche Ely’s only loss this season was a 42-0 setback to Deerfield Beach in the third game of the season, since then, they have reeled off five wins in a row. The last time the Tigers had a winning season was 2013.
“Deerfield was a game where I felt we beat ourselves and I didn’t harp on that,” said Blanche Ely coach Clifford Wimberly. “We jumped right back into action and put that game behind us. I told the kids we have a long season left to play and our goal was to ‘restore the roar,’ and I think we are doing that.”
Gary Curreri is a correspondent for the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
