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News-Sun photo courtesy of JAMIE WILLIAMS Red Devil tacklers Lauer Lewis (13) and Mason Jahna (5) wrap up the Dunabr ball carrier.

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published: Sunday, October 28, 2012

Tigers too much for the Red Devils

By JAMIE WILLIAMS

Special to the News-Sun

AVON PARK - Despite gusty winds and darkened clouds pouring over Joe Franza Stadium, the rain did not show up.

Unfortunately for Avon Park, the Dunbar Tigers did show up.

Mother Nature kept the rain away, but the Red Devils could not keep the Tigers out of the end zone as Dunbar cruised to a 44-0 win.

"They are extremely athletic and obviously we use the term creating is their strength." said Avon Park head coach Lee Brown, "When you have everything accounted for, schematically, you cannot account for their ability to create on broken plays, which is what happened tonight."

With the wind at their backs, Dunbar started its' first drive from the midfield stripe.

Two plays later, they were on Avon Park's 13.

The Red Devil defense tightened up and forced Dunbar into a fourth-and-13 from the 16-yard line.

But the Tigers went for it and quarterback Daniel Cobb ran 16 yards for the touchdown.

Avon Park prevented the two-point conversion to keep the score at 6-0.

The next three plays netted two turnovers as Avon Park first fumbled the ball over to Dunbar.

The Tigers then returned the favor by throwing an interception on the next play as Avon Park regained possession of the ball.

Forced to punt after three plays into the stiff wind, Dunbar rushed the punter, forcing him to punt the ball high and against the gust.

The result was, the ball never made it back to the line of scrimmage and actually lost 20 yard by the time it came back down to give the Tigers the ball on Avon Park's 11.

Dunbar scored two plays later on a 10-yard run by Cobb up the middle.

Cobb actually fumbled the ball after breaking through the line of scrimmage, but was able to pick the ball back up and continue the last five yards for the touchdown.

The two point conversion failed again and Dunbar extended their lead to 12-0.

Avon Park would be forced to punt again on their next possession after three plays from their own 17 yard line.

The punter was unable to handle the snap and was tackled at the one-yard line.

This time the Red Devil defense kept the Tigers out of the end zone, instead settling for a 23-yard field goal to account for the 15-0 lead at the end of the first quarter, which is where it would also stay through to halftime.

Any chance Avon Park had of getting back into it quickly faded in the third quarter as Dunbar scored three times.

Marquise Bryant scored first for the Tigers on a 7-yard run to put Dunbar up 22-0.

Another snap was fumbled by the Avon Park punter and Dunbar's Tajze Battle scooped up the ball and ran 30 yards for the second score of the quarter.

With the two point conversion, the Tigers led 30-0.

Dunbar's Jailyn White scored the third touchdown of the quarter on a 24-yard reverse as Dunbar pushed the lead to 36-0.

Dunbar added one more score in the fourth quarter when they returned a fumble 31 yards for a touchdown to provide for the final margin at 44-0.

Losing Ryan Dick and David Sims to injury severely hurt the offense.

"When we had both Dick and Sims in the backfield or at least one of them," said Brown. "We had a puncher's chance. Once they both got hurt, so did our puncher's chance."

Coach Brown expressed high praise on another Brown, linebacker Dylan Brown.

"This week we had a package for him that was supposed to be a short yardage and specialty package," said Coach Brown. "We had to expand that because of the injuries. I thought he did a commendable job for a guy who is playing linebacker and ran the ball a little bit last year, to take that many reps against a team like that."

Avon Park is off this week and then will host their final game of the season against county rival Sebring on Friday, Nov. 9.