Tampa Catholic Football Tops Bloomingdale High

's football team quickly recovered from a first quarter deficit to put Bloomingdale High to bed on Friday night by a final score of 33-14.

Bloomingdale's leading rusher Eugene Baker got the scoring started with a 27-yard touchdown run in the first quarter, but the Crusaders would find their footing in the 2nd quarter scoring 20 unanswered points.

"I thought we did well on our first few drives but we just couldn't make it count," Tampa Catholic coach Bob Henriquez said. "In the second quarter, we executed perfectly. On both sides of the ball I thought we dominated the line of scrimmage well."

The Crusaders offensive line was the key to the victory as they dominated Bloomingdale up front and gave four different rushers the chance to surpass 50-yards as the team threw the ball only eight times on the night.

"Our offensive line did a tremondous job opening up the game for us tonight," Henriquez said. "Once Bloomingdale got on the board, we did a good job of answering with a score of our own and I thought that our quarterback did an excellent job managing the game. We pretty much were able to dominate from there."

Senior ran for 115-yards and two touchdowns on the night, just barely out performing his backfield teammate Trevor Register who ran for 95-yards on 12 carries with a score of his own. Freshman Cory Bennett would finish as Tampa Catholic's leading rusher on the night however, with 121-yards and one touchdown.

Tampa Catholic is now 3-0 for the season and appears to be plowing ahead full steam at their target of making the playoffs once again.

"This is good win for us because we're playing a team that has played very well this season," Henriquez said. "We controlled the tempo of this game and even though I still think we have a lot of growing to do, this was good for us. We're still missing some starters but once we get healthy I think we'll be even better."

Bloomingdale meanwhile is (2-2) and will certainly be disheartened with the loss despite their strong start to the season. If there is a positive that they can take from the performance it's that Baker finished with 142-yards rushing and a touchdown, a solid performance against a larger opponent.