JUPITER – The regular season could not have ended much better for Jupiter Christian (5-3).
Led by head coach Baz Alfred, the home team earned an easy 56-0 win last night (Oct. 20) over Tradition Prep (0-6), a first-year varsity football program based in Port St. Lucie.
Held at Jupiter High School, Alfred spoke on how this season has generally gone overall for his program in a special pregame interview with New Era Prep.
“Whenever you schedule a juggernaut like Cardinal Newman, you want to see what kind of level you’re on if you’re ready to jump into the FHSAA,” said Alfred, who led his Eagles in a kickoff classic game back in August against the Crusaders. “We know now we weren’t ready for it. We had a tough stretch early on. But we ran off three wins in the last three, four weeks. And now we’re in a position to end the season on a high note.”
Make that four wins in a row now for Jupiter Christian, which started the game with a 14-0 lead over Tradition Prep.
In the pivotal first quarter, we witnessed two short touchdown runs from sophomore athlete Gideon Douglas. The first one, a 3-yarder to the end zone at the 10:09 mark, was set up by a long punt return by junior Nolan Hollinger that put the Eagles deep in the Pirates red zone area.
After the first frame, Jupiter Christian poured on some more touchdown moments – three to be exact in the second quarter.
We got our first touchdown run of the night from Eagles senior standout running back Alex Rosario, who ran right up the middle for a score to make it 20-0 with 8:11 left in the half.
The other two scores came off passes.
With 4:16 left, quarterback Champ Harris found Hollinger in the end zone as the Eagles started to pull away from the Pirates here. They went up 26-0.
And just before halftime, senior quarterback Joel Sacerio had his shining moment as a passer with a well-timed touchdown connection to senior athlete Glawinson Resignac.
A two-point conversion made the score at 34-0.
In the third quarter, we got two scores from Jupiter Christian. One of them was a pick-six from senior athlete Camaree Harris, which was his first one of the season.
At the 4:12 mark of the third quarter, Jupiter Christian’s lead was 47-0.
With a running clock ensuing for the rest of this game, the Alfred-led team added a safety early in the fourth quarter.
The final score came off a spirited 5-yard run to the end zone by Sacerio and an extra point by senior Ethan Bonocore with 4:52 left in the game.
Alfred spoke on how his team ended the regular season on a high note.
“The start of this season was a little bumpy,” Alfred said. “We started off 1-3. But the boys stayed focused. They took in coaching. Every year we went 7-1, 7-2 overall. You have another group of seniors, and they have to learn the culture and the coaching style. We finally got it installed and rolling in the right direction. We won four straight, finishing off the season 5-3.”
Jupiter Christian defensive coordinator Bee Alfred, the younger brother of Baz, chimed in.
“The fun part is that in the beginning of the year, most coaches wouldn’t want to go challenge themselves,” Bee Alfred said. “We have a young team – a lot of people don’t know that – where we’re forcing them to get better by going through the buzzsaw of the Newmans and the whatnots. We wanted them to understand what the level of competition looks like.”
SIDE NOTE: Jupiter Christian and Tradition Prep will be the Sunshine State Athletic Conference (SSAC) postseason, which is scheduled to begin next week.
We expect more information on that to be released by the SSAC some time this weekend.
Stay tuned for further details.
PHOTO CREDITS: Ronaldo Garcia
