The Land O' Lakes Gators crushed the Sunlake Seahawks 5-1 in the boys soccer regional semifinal competition Friday night.
The Gators are on top.
Such was not the case back on Oct. 20 of last year. That night Sunlake put an official stamp on the rivalry by beating the Gators in football 21-10— the first time in school history.
Land O' Lakes owns Sunlake in baseball. However, Sunlake softball won the matchup last year 14-1. The Gators are dominant in basketball but the Seahawks have them in wrestling.
"It's like we were the little brother that got picked on that now, he's starting to fight back," said Sunlakes' athletic director and wrestling coach Rus Schenk.
Even the soccer rivalry is starting to sizzle.
The girls soccer teams tied 0-0 and 1-1 in the regular season. The boys soccer teams split their first meeting 1-1. The Gators rolled 5-1 later in the season. Then Sunlake came back and won the district title at Land O' Lakes 3-2 on Jan. 27. The two teams would collide again last Friday in the regional semifinals with all the chips on the table.
"Us losing on our field the way we did, it made us really mad," said Gator senior defender Jacob Frahm.
The game had the feeling that it was going to be a slugfest—at least for the first half. Land O' Lakes drew first blood in the 28-minute when junior defender Sean Young headed in a corner kick. Sunlake hit right back. Less than two minutes later, senior Calvin Restrepo knotted the score at 1-1 when he blasted a shot in from outside the top corner of the 18-yard box.
The score carried into halftime but the Gators turned up the heat before the half and picked up right where they left off in the second.
"We wanted to attack a little more coming out of the half but instead we came out a little flat," said Seahawk head coach Sam Koleduk.
After putting tremendous pressure on the Seahawk defense, the Gators finally broke through at the 28-minute mark to go up 2-1, then again at the 25-minute mark to go up 3-1. The Gators never took their foot off the gas and Sunlake was compelled to push players forward to give themselves a chance. Freshman Connor Spencer of Sunlake played a ball at point-blank range at the Gator keeper but it hit the crossbar.
That was as close at the Seahawks would come. They even got caught forward a couple more times and surrendered a fourth and then a fifth goal.
"The difference tonight was us settling down and playing our game," said Gator head coach Mark Pearson. "We were able to handle their long ball tonight, dominate possession and play solid defense."
It was a tough loss to end the season but far from a loss of a season for Sunlake.
"I'm extremely proud of these kids," said Koleduk. "This year was a tough road, you could very well see the winner (Land O' Lakes High) at states this year."
"I remember when I first got to Land O' Lakes and we played Sunlake it would be like 8-0. Then it was like 6-0, last year it was like 4-0," Frahm said.
This year they split the series 2-2.
"The kids that are seniors here now all went to Rushe Middle School, so they identify with being at Sunlake as an eighth-grader," Schenk said.
"We've developed an identity here at Sunlake," he added.
While Sunlake may have proved themselves as legitimate rivals this year, Land O' Lakes takes their boys soccer team deeper into the playoffs. They will face the Gainesville's Eastside High on Tuesday in the regional finals.