Navarre found out they missed the playoffs on Sunday morning, following an off-week and a blowout of Crestview from the week before.
Navarre (6-4) missing the playoffs stirred up some controversy due to the Raiders having beat Crestview 52-14 just over a week before the playoff brackets were announced, having a better win-loss record than Crestview (5-5) and still missing the playoffs in favor of Crestview making it.
Navarre will end their season with wins over Gulf Breeze, Milton, Pace, Tate, Leon and Crestview.
Senior quarterback Marlon Courtney, senior running back Jayden Antonio, senior receiver Xayvion Thomas, senior receiver Tyler England, and others all played key roles for the Raiders, but they still came up just short of their goal.
England finished the season with over 770 receiving yards, while Courtney finished with over 1700 passing yards, and both were the 7A district-one leaders in those categories.
Despite being a junior, defensive lineman Grady Kelly led the district in sacks with 17. The next closest was Lincoln’s Neryan Forston with five sacks.
That put Kelly in the top-seven for all of Florida.
The Raiders will still return a few key pieces to next year’s team, such as Kelly, running back Jaden Rivera, linebacker Devin Wright and more.
Gulf Breeze, in their last game of the season, lost to Pine Forest 49-7 last Friday.
Gulf Breeze (3-7) was coming off of a win against Pace, but Pine Forest (7-2) was able to dominate from start to finish against the Dolphins.
Pine Forest’s senior quarterback, Ladarius Clardy, did most of the damage against the Dolphins.
Clardy completed 80-percent of his passes for over 200 yards and added four passing touchdowns to his stat line.
Sophomore running back Joseph Garrett also had quite the night against Gulf Breeze, running for 143 yards on just 12 carries, with a long run of 64 yards.
This would be the last game of the season for the Dolphins, who boast wins over Choctaw, Fort Walton Beach and Pace.
