Tyler Phelps led the Gulf Breeze High School Dolphins to a 55-28 victory over Pace High School last Friday night, throwing for a personal-best 425 yards and four touchdowns on Senior Night.
The Patriots opened up the night by recieving the kickoff and returned the ball to the 48-yard line, threatening to score withing the first minute of the match. Senior quarterback Damean Bivins pulled down a high snap on second down and was forced to scramble, making it into the endzone for a touchdown that would be called-back due to illegal formation.
Gulf Breeze held down the Pace offense for the rest of the drive, allowing the Patriots only 6 yards during their opening possession. Senior Cole Sheppard set-up the Dolphin offense at the 1-yard line with an acrobatic one-handed catch after Tyler Phelps launched a 24-yard pass in his direction while under coverage. Sheppard led the night in receiving yards for either team, with 163 total yards and one touchdown.
“Well you know it was obviously really special it means a lot to this program and this community to go and do what we’ve done so far,” Sheppard said. “Coach always says players make big plays in big games and I’m a just a player so I was going to do my best to go out there and make a play.”
Phelps kept the ball on the next play and snuck into the endzone for the first touchdown of the night, concluding the Dolphins 65-yard drive that lasted only four plays. While Phelps put-up most of Gulf Breeze’s 517 total yards through the air, highly rated running back Anthony Johnson Jr. rushed for 302 out of the Patriots’ 398 total yards.
Johnson answered for Pace with 8 minutes to play in the first half after he dodged a couple of tackles on his own 18-yard line before taking-off for a massive 81-yard touchdown run that gifted the Patriots some much-needed momentum. Despite a couple of breakaways from Johnson during the match that resulted in touchdowns, the Gulf Breeze defense did well to limit the overall impact of the Pace offense led by Bivins.
The Dolphins led 28-7 at the end of the first half, but the Patriots attempted a comeback after the break, outscoring Gulf Breeze 15-13 in the third quarter. With 6:52 left to play in the third, Johnson broke through the Dolphins’ defensive line once again for a 48-yard touchdown run. Bivins faked a handoff to Johnson on the 2-point conversion attempt, and found the hands of a diving Bailey Clark in the left side of the endzone instead to bring the score to 34-17.
Bivins had his lowest amount of total rushing yards in any game this season against the Dolphin defense with -3 yards on 10 carries, forced to hand-off to Johnson on the majority of his 29 carries. Gulf Breeze sacked the sophomore quarterback three times for a combined loss of 20 yards and 10 other tackles behind the line of scrimmage. Gulf Breeze made history for the win, beating Pace for the first time in over 20 years.
The Dolphins have a bye week this week before hosting rivals Navarre High School Raiders next Friday night at 7:30 p.m. The Dolphins and the Raiders are both 2-0 in District 2 6-A and are tied for first place at the top of the table.
