St. Johns Spotlight: Bartram Trail football makes history as road warriors in Panhandle
Bartram Trail now stands alone as St. Johns County's king of the road.
Road warriors, and masters of the Panhandle, Bartram Trail became the first Northeast Florida football team ever to win consecutive Florida High School Athletic Association playoff games in the Central Standard Time zone.
The Bears, who had won 67-55 at Navarre in the opening round, ousted host Niceville 28-21 in Friday's second round to complete a two-week road swing with roughly 1,400 miles on the highway.
Several other Jacksonville-area teams — most recently Bolles in 2018 — have achieved back-to-back road wins in which one of the games came in Tallahassee or Monticello around the Big Bend. But no local team in 60 years of postseason football had crossed the time zone line in consecutive weeks and emerged victorious.
In another triumph for the surging ground game, Laython Biddle (192 yards rushing) and Riley Trujillo (114) led the Bears' 512-yard offensive charge in Navarre. Biddle boosted his season mark to 2,096 yards last week, and cleared the 4,000 mark for his career.
With St. Augustine staying undefeated by beating Escambia, St. Johns County has a chance of producing two final four teams for the first time since Bartram Trail and St. Augustine both qualified for semifinals in 2017.
Bally Sports, FHSAA in football TV deal
Can't make it to Tallahassee for next month's football finals? After a long wait, fans this December can just touch that dial — or, more realistically in 2023, their remote control.
The FHSAA announced a broadcast agreement with Bally Sports to televise all nine football championship games from Dec. 7-9, the first time in more than a decade that the finals will be available on live cable television.
Each football final will air on either Bally Sports Florida or Bally Sports Sun, in addition to live streaming through BallySports.com and the Bally Sports app.
The FHSAA has scheduled games for 10 a.m., 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. at Florida A&M's Bragg Memorial Stadium, but has not yet determined which classes will play on specific dates and times.
Sunshine Network regularly televised FHSAA championships during the 2000s, originally live and later on a tape-delay basis. However, FHSAA football finals in recent years have been limited to online streaming through Spectrum Cable, which charges a fee for non-subscribers.
Gulf Breeze halts Bears' soccer streak
Northeast Florida's longest active team sports undefeated streak is now history.
Mia Davis and Emma Fulford netted second-half goals and Gulf Breeze defeated Bartram Trail 2-1 in Saturday morning girls soccer played at Beachside, ending the Bears' unbeaten run at 27 games.
Bartram Trail, which went 22-0-1 on the road to the 2022-23 United Soccer Coaches national championship and won its first four games this season, hadn't lost since dropping the Region 1-7A semifinal 3-2 to Creekside on Feb. 11, 2022.
Northeast Florida's longest all-time girls soccer winning streak belongs to St. Johns Country Day, which won every contest for 76 games between Jan. 6, 2015 to Dec. 7, 2018.
Sharks shine in wrestling preseason
Basketball isn't the only sport starting this week.
Girls wrestling also takes to the mat for the first time, while boys wrestling is in the midst of preseason competition ahead of their Nov. 27 opening.
Preseason for girls opened last week. Ponte Vedra girls earned three top finishes at Saturday's Space Coast preseason meet in Cocoa, with Erin Rizzuto (115), Natalia Choquegonza (120) and Laken Wesseling (130) placing first in their events.
Around the area
Coastal Carolina freshman libero Sydney Lewis, from Bartram Trail, was named second-team All-Sun Belt in volleyball. … Gardner-Webb outside hitter Jenna Otts, also from Bartram Trail, made the second-team and All-Freshman Big South lists in volleyball.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Bartram Trail High School football: Historic FHSAA playoff road wins
