WEST PALM BEACH – King’s Academy was able to pull away early on Everglades Prep and put on a dominant performance in a 42-12 victory.
King’s Academy’s defense set the tone early and often as rising senior Brandon Prichard made his presence be known in more ways than one. He forced Everglades into a three-and-out after sacking the quarterback and finished the game with two tackles for loss and a quarterback hurry.
Prichard attributed his performance to being fired up after getting talked to by his coach for messing around during warm ups.
“To be honest I was messing around during warm ups and my coach yelled at me,” Prichard said. “That motivated me to come out show my best performance.”
King’s Academy quarterback Justin Wake could be one of the most underrated players in Palm Beach County right now after his performance Friday night.
Wake would hook up with wideout Drew Luchey to get the Lions on the board early in the opening quarter. Wake hooked up with wideout Cory Croteau twice and wideout Jeremiah Scroggins once on a 40-yard pass to cap off his four-touchdown performance.
“We were expecting them to come out in man defense and press us.” Wake said. “We made some adjustments and we were able to score five touchdowns on offense.”
Croteau had himself a game also as he scored three touchdowns. He caught two of them on offense and recovered a fumble in the end zone on defense.
“Playing both ways tonight, I was out there dying,” Croteau jokingly said. “Justin threw some great passes and coach called some great plays.”
Everglades Prep was able to put some points on the board in the second half with their quarterback David Jester scoring twice on the ground.
Much of the second half was played by Kings Academy’s reserves as the running clock rule came into effect early in the third quarter. Backup running back DJ Alexandre would score the Lions final touchdown of the night on a short run.
King’s Academy head coach Keith Allen seemed to be happy with his team’s performance. But he believes his team has room for improvement, even though they look to be on the right track.
“The biggest thing I saw tonight was that our kids are well coached.” Allen said. “They took our coaching and we were able to execute a lot of the time.”
Winning is nothing new to this King’s Academy team as they’ve tallied a record of 22-2 over the past two seasons. Allen would comment on what this win means for his team.
“It’s been a long time since the playoff loss.” Allen said. “Losing is not a good feeling for us, so this (victory) got that monkey off of our back.”
