High school spring football: What we learned about Wellington, Royal Palm Beach and Forest Hill
WELLINGTON — After Thursday’s football jamboree featuring Royal Palm Beach, Forest Hill and Wellington High School, all three coaches believe their teams have a chance of success going into the fall by getting bigger and stronger during the summer.
The jamboree — in this case, spring scrimmages — saw all three schools face each other at some point during the night, but it was Wellington that stood out the most, going 2-0 against Royal Palm and Forest Hill.
After defeating Royal Palm Beach 20-0 in the first game, the Wolverines took a break before defeating Forest Hill 15-6 in game three. While the defense looked unstoppable Thursday night, it was the offense — led by quarterback Ryan Anthony who had three total touchdowns Thursday — that looked flawless on the field against both teams.
Both Wellington and Forest Hill secured wins against Royal Palm, as the Wildcats were the only winless team of the night, losing to the Falcons 22-0.
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Here are three takeaways from the jamboree:
Same Royal Palm Beach, different faces
Wildcats coach Darin DeCosta will have his hands full before the 2021 season, saying he has “25 freshmen that haven’t played a down of high school football” going into the fall. After being shut out in both games, he said the team will focus on rebuilding with who they have.
“We’re rebuilding everything, and it’s not the spread offense we’re used to seeing. We don’t have the guys,” he said. “We got to be better disciplined and we got to get stronger, and we just got to execute with a purpose.”
One of the guys he will not have is quarterback Peyton Mainolfi, who graduates this spring and will be playing football at Bethany College (Kansas). In 2019, Mainolfi threw for 2,000 yards and 17 touchdowns, and in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, was named honorable mention in the Palm Beach Post All-County team.
Thursday night was a glimpse of who Royal Palm Beach will lean on once the season starts, as the Wildcats had Jason Worthen and James Williams split time at quarterback.
“We saw good things with all of them [Thursday night],” DeCosta said. “We’re trying to do different things to make people play us in different ways so we can put ourselves in better situations, but we’ll have to wait until August until we figure it out.”
New coach, new scheme at Wellington
When Danny Mendoza was hired to be the next Wolverines head coach back in March, he knew he would have to replace nine years' worth of familiarity left by former coach Tom Abel, who is now the offensive line coach at Campbell High School in Georgia. After going 2-0 in the jamboree, it looks like it is working.
More on hiring:Wellington High School finds new football coach in Orlando native Danny Mendoza
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Mendoza said he plans to take bits and pieces of what he learned during his time as an assistant coach at Red Bank Regional (New Jersey) and Apopka High School, and his players seem to already be on board with it.
“Red Bank Regional had a great head coach who always held me accountable as an offensive coordinator, making sure I knew why I was doing things and not just calling plays,” he said. “Apopka is great for a reason: taking the recipe that they have and trying to bring some of those things here like great camaraderie, great community, getting parents to walk people out to the games, keeping the kids in school, staying out of trouble and into their academics.”
No Draper? No Jeter? No problem for Forest Hill
With the quarterback/wide receiver duo of Jalen Jeter and Donovan Draper graduating, it left first-year head coach Jim Basford with some holes to fill. Jeter was Post large-schools first team all-county after he finished with 1,206 total yards and 12 touchdowns in four games. Draper made second team and will play football at Navy.
“It’s really hard to say that you could ever really replace a Donovan Draper or Jalen Jeter,” Basford said. “Those kids are phenomenal football players.”
One player he believes will have a great season is rising senior athlete Dmitry Peters, who has played all over the field since his freshman year.
“Dmitry Peters is going to be one of the best players of Palm Beach County,” he said. “I talked to him about moving to quarterback and he’s ready to go. He’s going to play quarterback, he’s going to play safety, he’s not going to leave the field. I’m really going to lean heavy on him to pull the strings on both sides of the ball.”