Time to sleep and time to think. After playing East Lake, the Palm Harbor Hurricanes were preparing for Seminole when Hurricane Hermine came through. This meant no practice or football for a full week.

There were large thunderstorms at the Cane’s field even before the hurricane hit. Practices took place inside the gym because of the rain on Monday and Tuesday.

“When we go indoors, we do walk-throughs,” Chad Santucci, a varsity football player, stated. “I think being indoors is good, but outdoors is much better because we get more stuff done.”
Knowing that for a third day in a row there would be bad weather, Coach Reggie Crume arranged for practice to be held at a facility in Trinity that was indoors.

“No matter the issue, we still will practice to be prepared for Friday nights,” Santucci said.

But, unfortunately, Hurricane Hermine swept through on that Wednesday, forcing all after-school activities to be canceled through the weekend.

The head coach, Reggie Crume, was willing to make up the Seminole game any day, but Seminole did not want to play. So, the team went another week without playing, which is also another week without preparing for Newsome.

The Hurricanes will see 21 days of practice and no games before they play Newsome.

During the two week break, the Hurricanes fought throughout practices to become ready for the game. They were gearing up in full pads for most of their practices and making sure that they had the strength for the Friday night football game.

But in the heat of the off week, Safety, Quinn Degnan (‘18) buckled his knee and had to be out for part of practice. This would have been a struggle for the Canes losing their starting safety when going to Newsome. Although his knee hurt, he pushed through the pain and made a full recovery quickly and resumed practice.

The struggle for Palm Harbor began on the bus ride to Newsome for the defense. The AC had broken on the charter bus, and it was 91° outside the bus. This meant it was at least 96° on the inside of the bus with the players sweating next to each other.

“It was so hot that you could see the sweat dripping off people’s fingers,” said Elias Kaltsounis (‘17).

To begin the game, neither team could move the ball down field. It was three plays and punt, back and forth. Then Degnan came down for a tackle and buckled his knee again. This time, taking him out for the game.

Shortly after, the Wolves score making it 6-0 ending the first quarter.

It was then when the Hurricanes had what normally happens to them and lightning began to strike around the field. The game had to be delayed and started again at 11:00am the next day.

When game time came again, the defense felt refreshed this time, not having an oven to ride in, and knew that it was game time.

Before the second quarter had ended the score was 7-6, with the Canes pushing ahead, even though penalty flags were being thrown left and right.

“I can honestly say that the defense on saturday was the best defense I have seen from Palm Harbor in the past two years,” said Jimmy Costalas.

With the defense not allowing Newsome to get more than a first down, it seemed like the Canes should have had the upside on the game.

But when offense began to drive down field, a pick was thrown to Newsome’s cornerback and was ran back for a 95-yard touchdown.

    The game ended 14-7 with Palm Harbor having 376-yards rushing, but 165-yards in penalties. This loss gave Newsome a win in the district and started the Canes off 0-1 in the district and 0-2 for the season.