Here's how Lake Gibson's junior quarterback carried Braves past Haines City

HAINES CTY — Ashton Frazier picked up where he left off last week and was an unstoppable force against Haines City.

The junior quarterback rushed for 166 yards in the first half as the Braves took advantage of a short-handed Haines City squad en route to a 36-0 victory on Friday night at Joe Stangry Stadium.

Frazier, who is new to the Lake Gibson program, having played at Akelynn’s Angels last year, came off the bench last week and finished with 203 yards of total offense in a loss to Duran. He finished his second game with 170 yards on 17 carries.

“I just came not too long ago,” Frazier said. “I’ve been with the team probably a couple of weeks. I didn’t play spring ball, but we're getting better, and we’ve got a great team all around. We got major players all around the field. We’ll just keep going, keep running, keep working.”

Against Haines City, it was the Ashton Frazier Show in the first half as he led the Braves to a 28-0 advantage.

It started on the first drive after Adonis Cuyler’s kickoff return to the 28. Frazier ran for 14 yards on the first play of the game and kept the ball on four plays and added a 4-yard pass in the middle and scored his first touchdown on a 3-yard run.

Frazier kept the ball on four plays (for 37 yards) on a five-play drive and scored on a 9-yard run on the second play of the second quarter.

Except for those two drives, it appeared as if Haines City was going to escape the first half trailing by just 14 points as Frazier rushed for 66 yards on his first 10 carries of the game.

However, with time running out in the second quarter, Frazier rushed for 100 yards on three carries. The first was a 71-yard touchdown with 4:01 to play in the half.

“He can run,” senior wide receiver Derrick McBride said. “He can really run. I didn’t think he could do all that stuff.”

The Hornets couldn’t close out the half after intercepting Frazier in the end zone and gave the ball back to Lake Gibson after a poor punt at the Haines City 25, and Frazier ran it in on the very next play.

Frazier remains a work in progress as the Braves try to improve the passing offense.

“We're still working that passing game with him,” Lake Gibson coach Rich Pringle said. “He's newer to the scheme, having only been here a few weeks. So it's just continuing to progress as an offense, not being one dimensional for the future. We do have to do some things to become less one dimensional and  to get balls in the hands of our athletes.”

Lake Gibson gets more help in 2nd half

With a 28-point lead as a cushion, Lake Gibson made it a point in the second half to get more players involved, and running back Xavier Norfleet was the chief beneficiary. Norfleet rushed for just 2 yards on four carries in the first half but then erupted for 48 yards on just five carries in the second half, including a 15-yard touchdown run that closed out the third quarter.

Haines City shorthanded

Haines City was in a hole to start the game as they were missing several key players for disciplinary reason, including starting quarterback Deonte Fielder, who did not enter the game until the second half.

The Hornets started the game with a freshman behind center. Regardless of who took the snaps, they struggled with the center-quarterback exchange as they had at least six plays where they took losses after not being able to handle the snap from center.

Haines City managed just one first down, which came on Fielder’s 22-yard run in the fourth quarter.

Up next

Lake Gibson has a bye next week then will play at Dunnellon on Sept. 13. Haines City plays host to Lake Minneola.

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Here's how Lake Gibson's junior quarterback carried Braves past Haines City