North Pop Warner 12U to play for championship
Last season, the North Fort Myers 12U Pop Warner football team went 2-7 and missed out on the Peace River Conference playoffs.
And with the amount of new players who came in this season, not much was really expected of them.
Yet, thanks to some hard work in the off-season by the coaches and players, here they are playing for a conference championship.
North’s 12U team will play for its third championship in four years when it plays the Fort Myers Firecats on Saturday at 2 p.m. at the North Fort Myers Community Park.
Steve Brown, athletic director and 12U head coach, said after a down year last season, he was happy to have this group of young men fight for the title.
“More than half the kids on our team are 11 years old, so they’ll be back next year. They have done a great job of coming together as a team,” Brown said.
Because of Hurricane Ian and because it struck toward the end of the regular season, the Peace River Conference had to scramble. It was decided the top eight teams in each division would make the playoffs, leaving only one team out.
The Red Knights program traveled to Naples since the Lee County parks were still closed for the first two rounds.
The 6U team and 14U team (which started its playoffs a week early because there is no Division I or 2) were eliminated in the Division 1 quarterfinals, while the 8U and 10U teams, which won handily in the first round, were both eliminated last weekend.
That left the 12U team to carry the torch for the football program after it beat Lehigh in the semifinal game. This will be a return match from the regular season when North defeated the Firecats 28-12.
Brown said it has been pretty amazing how the team came together after the hurricane. They could have come back rusty and out of shape, but the kids studied tape, held team meetings and worked out on their own.
Without a park to go to, they had to practice at Ranch Road Baptist Church off State Road 31. Brown said the team would not be in the position they are in without them.
While the coaching has improved, the real success comes from the kids who bought in and worked to become the best.
“Our success is wholeheartedly related to the efforts of these 11- and 12-year-old boys. What they did to make themselves into a football team is amazing,” Brown said. “You may have a lot of talent, but if you’re not a team, football has a way to expose that.”
And it’s been a very unselfish bunch, not relying on one or two kids to carry the team. More than a dozen kids have scored touchdowns the season, nearly half the squad.
“This isn’t a one-man show, it’s a true team event. We have only given up 12 points this season and are undefeated. Couple that with what we did in the spring, in the last 14 games we have given up 18 points,” Brown said.
The players see the difference and are looking forward to the chance to compete for a championship.
“We’re doing much better than last year. We’ve played way better as a team and you get more accomplished that way,” said Sawyer Crowther, one of the team leaders. “We have new players who have helped us out. We did film study with Coach Steve and reviewed plays after the hurricane and talked about what we need to work on. That really helped us.”
To reach CHUCK BALLARO, please email news@breezenewspapers.com