The score in lights at the end of the game wasn’t what Bayside High wanted from its football team on Monday night, but there were signs that the Bears have something to build on.
Bayside Highs RB #4 Joel Dorjuste picks up some nice yards past North Broward Preps defenders during Monday nights game held at the Bayside High Bears Football stadium Palm Bay.
After a winless 2015 season, Bayside ran into a slick opposing passing game in its spring outing, falling 45-28 against North Broward Prep on Monday at home.
The Bears started a busy week of spring football. Cocoa, which won’t play a spring game, will hold an intrasquad scrimmage tonight. The Tigers will play at Cocoa Stadium at 6. Wednesday will be the busiest night of the week on the gridiron.
Satellite and Cocoa Beach will bring their rivalry to May, while Viera and Palm Bay will host out-of-county opposition.
Bears coaches and players will have film to watch from their own game, and they’ll see the same thing they saw in person. The Eagles brought highly recruited Kevin Austin, a 6-foot-3 wide receiver who will be a junior next year and already has a mailbox full of Division I offers.
“We’ve got to get better at tackling,” returning Bayside head coach Mike Nahl said. “We knew they had good players, but we made too many mental errors.”
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Austin scored on a fourth-and-13 when the Bears appeared to have a sack but let him get behind the defense for a touchdown pass of 39 yards. He added a 25-yard catch and a 75-yard run.
The highlight for the Bears secondary was an interception in the end zone by Shean Gaspard in the first quarter.
Quitting was not among Bayside’s mental mistakes. Derrin Chandler scored from 32 on a fourth-and-3 when he seemed stopped by the Eagles defense but spun out of the attempted tackle and found the end zone.
A similar run that resulted in a first down later in the game was called back however by a penalty.
The Bears showed they could be explosive on the ground with a 4-play, 80-yard drive on their first possession, capped by a Joel Dorjuste 4-yard run.
Nahl pointed to three positives from the spring practices.
“I think we grew up a little bit as a team. We installed some new stuff that I won’t go into, and we stayed injury free,” he said. “We also found of couple of surprises we’ll take a look at.”
They had a surprise through the air in the final minute, when Jaylon Malcom turned a Jordan Mcilvain pass into a 60-yard scoring play to answer a late Eagles touchdown.
Contact McCallum at 321-242-3698 or bmccallum@floridatoday.com. Follow @Brian_McCallum on Twitter and facebook.com/FLtoday.brianmccallum.
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Tuesday
Cocoa intrasquad scrimmage, 6 p.m.
Tickets $4 for adults, $2 for students
Wednesday
Lake Wales at Palm Bay, 6:30
Satellite at Cocoa Beach, 7
Spruce Creek at Viera, 7
Thursday
MIC vs Faith Christian at Colonial, 7
Friday
Jordan Christian Prep at Holy Trinity, 7
Eau Gallie at Harmony, 7
Rockledge at Ft. Pierce Westwood, 7
Space Coast at Port St. Lucie, 7
Astronaut at East River, 7
High school sports | floridatoday.com/sports/high-school-sports/