Unbeaten Niceville celebrates homecoming behind healthy backfield

NICEVILLE — The Eagles were due for a cupcake game.

After felling four ranked foes and a pair of Okaloosa County rivals in the first half of the season, unbeaten Niceville football (6-0) celebrated Homecoming Friday with a healthy backfield and a 41-7 running-clock win over 1-4 Gulf Breeze.

Eddie Love, who sat the first four weeks with an ankle injury, scored on runs of 44 and 15 yards, and Connor Matthews found the end zone three times, including an 83-yard screen pass from Johnny Lewis to give him the team lead with 10 touchdowns on the season.

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The backfield was already feeding three mouths entering the night. UMass commitment Mathews represented a 39% share of the carries with a 9.5 yards-per-carry average, with Johnny Lewis at 28% and Mr. Heavy package Jon Bocchino adding another 14% to go along with nine touchdowns.

Love, who on the 44-yard touchdown run made a cut at midfield and flashed the speed that has him headed to play at East Carolina University, will make it a four-headed backfield behind inarguably the best offensive line in the Panhandle.

"Those guys are all gonna make plays for us all year," Niceville head coach Grant Thompson said of Mathews, Love, Lewis and Bocchino. "They're all great players, but none of them could do it without the offensive line. The better they play, the better they look, so it's really a cohesive unit right now."

Gulf Breeze offered more than just another foe to pick apart on the ground. The visiting Dolphins gave Niceville an opportunity to work on the passing game, which hasn't taken off but also hasn't been relied on early. Twenty-one pass attempts in the first half alone was season-high for the Eagles, and Lewis completed 11 of 18 for 149 yards, while Kane Lafortune was 1-for-3 for 17 yards. A 45-yard touchdown pass from Lewis to Robert Stith was negated by a holding penalty, while Mathews' 83-yard burst represented Niceville's elusiveness in the flat.

"We had some stuff that we worked on, and we wanted to throw it," Thompson said. "We want to be a balanced attack and win any way we can."

No Eagles starter played a snap in the second half. Gulf Breeze, which was held to negative-5 rushing yards by Niceville's starters, scored on the last play of the game, negating a promise by associate head coach Adron Robinson that he'd buy the offense Tops if they procured a shutout.

Niceville now gets a much-deserved off week at 6-0 and outscoring foes 225-102, sure to either maintain or rise from its current rank of third in 5A and 12th in the state according to USA Today. The Eagles next travel to district foe Mosley looking for redemption after last year's road loss.

This article originally appeared on Northwest Florida Daily News: Unbeaten Niceville celebrates homecoming behind healthy backfield