Braden River's lopsided defeat is misleading

Take heart Braden River football fans, the Pirates spring game loss to Naples isn't as bad as the final score might indicate.

Curt Bradley (left)

Not to make excuses, but it seems like the young Pirates might have been duped a little by a veteran Naples team that made it to the Class 6A Region championship game last season and defeated its two early round opponents 49-13 and 41-0.

The host Golden Eagles led 42-0 at halftime Friday night when the game was stopped because of weather.Naples did something virtually unheard of in a spring game when it attempted an onsides kick after taking a 7-0 lead on its first drive of the game.

It caught the inexperienced young Pirates by suprise. Evrything was "live" meaning unlike a lot spring games, kickoff and punts were played just like in a normal game. Naples took advantage of that with a 65 yard punt return for a touchdown.

Interim head coach Greg Williford, who is in charge until new head coach Curt Bradley arrives next month, wasn't looking for excuses. However, he was proud of how hard the Pirates played.

"They jumped on us really quick, had that onsides kick and it was tough for our kids to overcome, but the real thing is that Naples is a very good team and just outplayed us," Williford said. "The onsides kick is part of the game and we were prepared for it. It shocked our kids, but they (Naples) wanted to use special teams, it was in their house and football is football."

Williford said his young team just wasn't prepared for a lot of things Naples did, including using blitzes that his kids had never seen.

"Our reads were not very good, but that is okay. The onsides kick thing is part of football and I  have no problem with that," Williford said. "I am proud of our kids. Do we have a lot of work to do? You bet! But they played hard and some in particular really showed a lot effort."

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