Plant City shows its mental toughness in win over arch-rival Durant

PLANT CITY — Plant City coach Terrence Hicks said he has preached it over and over again: “No matter what happens this season, we will stay mentally tough.”

So far, so very good.

Not only have the Raiders won three tight games in dramatic fashion and bounced back after a tough loss in the second week, on Thursday they defeated arch-rival Durant 17-14 to hoist the coveted Redman Cup for the first time in three seasons.

And all that after going 3-7 last year.

“At times in years before we would come out and get behind and self destruct and mentally break down,” Hicks said. “But now I think we’ve turned that attitude around. We have shown we can stay mentally tough. We showed it (Thursday).”

Trailing 8-0 after Durant marched for a touchdown on its opening possession, Plant City drove to the Durant 1-inch line before getting turned back and settling for a field goal.

“When the team came to the sideline after getting stopped I said to them, ‘We’re OK, we’re OK. We drove it down there, and we just had one or two bad plays. We’ll be OK,’” Hicks said.

The Raiders (3-1) took a 9-8 lead after intercepting a pass, moving 60 yards and scoring on a 1-yard dive by Michael Bell just before time expired in the first half.

Durant (3-1) responded with a 50-yard drive and 5-yard touchdown run by Emmanuel Lee but missed the extra point, making it 14-9.

What followed were several big plays by Plant City running back Tony Marshall and quarterback Chris Denson, who turned a couple of would-be Durant sacks into dramatic sprints for first downs.

The biggest play? It came with 11:26 left in the game on a fourth down at the Durant 17-yard line, when Hicks decided to go for a first down rather than attempt a field goal.

“I trust my quarterback and I trust my receivers, and I just told them, ‘Hey, at all costs, throw the ball. It’s fourth down, so don’t take a sack and make sure you throw it,’” Hicks said. “I said, ‘Let’s be aggressive and win the game. We came here to win this game, so let’s go win it.’”

Denson hit Zykee Joyce in the flat, and Joyce did the rest, cutting twice and sprinting in for what turned out to be the winning score.

Durant got the ball three more times, but it ended up fumbling it away once and getting stopped on downs two other times.

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“Our defense really stepped up,” Hicks said. “I believed they would. We all believed.”