Kelvin Taylor's seven touchdowns leads Glades Day to 56-42 win

Thursday, October 11, 2012
by Matt Porter

As good as Fred Taylor was in a Glades Central uniform, he recalled never scoring more than five touchdowns in a single game.

Certainly not seven.

"Maybe if you changed some of my two-point conversions to touchdowns," he joked.

Taylor was on hand to witness his son set a new record for the family. Kelvin Taylor's seven touchdowns Thursday night lifted ninth-ranked Glades Day to a 56-42 win over Village Academy, securing the top spot in District 7-2A.

"I was still mad at myself," Kelvin Taylor said. "There were more runs that I thought, dang, I could have broken that."

After allowing 426 yards and five touchdowns to Taylor in last year's meeting, Village Academy "held" him to 177 yards on 31 carries.

But Taylor had a short field in front of him for much of the evening thanks to several long kick and punt returns by the Gators (6-1, 3-0 District 7-2A). Glades Day also forced the Tigers (2-3, 1-1 7-2A) to defend the pass -- freshman quarterback Josh Carr was 6-of-13 for 160 yards and a touchdown.

Even Taylor completed 1-of-2 passes from the wildcat formation, and threw a perfect deep spiral that drew a pass-interference call.

"Backyard football," Taylor joked. "I looked like my little brothers throwing the ball. I'm not going go to college for that."

Taylor now has a state-record 11,217 rushing yards and 178 touchdowns. He has 9,673 yards since his freshman year, which is 1,559 shy of the national record (11,232). Glades Day has two regular-season games remaining.

"I thought we were pretty balanced tonight, so I was very happy with that," Glades Day coach Pete Walker said. "We didn't do a very good job in containing them in the second half. We have to look at that. They've got great athletes."

After Taylor's first-quarter, 7-yard touchdown run, Village tied the game at 6 with a 13-yard score from senior Erich Maine. After two TDs from Taylor made it 21-6, Village pulled within a touchdown on a 35-yard sweep by junior Hancy Estime.

Estime later left the game with a concussion and was taken to Lakeside Medical Center for evaluation.

Glades Day senior Calvin Darville made a tip-toe grab in the end zone to make it 28-14 before Glades Day opened up a 41-14 lead on two more Taylor runs. Then, Tigers junior Trequan Smith went 75 yards through the Gators' defense and senior quarterback Larry Brihm (13-of-25, TD, INT; 18 carries, 95 yards, TD) threw a touchdown pass to junior Wesley Michel to make it 41-28.

Village had chances to pull close, but Taylor was automatic, closing it out with two more touchdown runs.

"We shot ourselves in the foot," Village Academy coach Don Hanna said. "We didn't stop (Taylor), but we contained him. I was proud of the defense. Offensively, we have to get going a lot sooner. Defensively, we have to clean a few things up."

That goes for both teams. Village was called for 130 yards on 13 penalties. Glades Day had two Taylor touchdowns called back because of holding calls and took 85 yards on nine penalties.

Note: Fort Lauderdale-Archbishop Carroll forfeited next week's game against Glades Day. Gators coach Pete Walker said he was informed by Archbishop Carroll that it wasn't comfortable facing a team of Glades Day's caliber. The Gators' next game is against Summit Christian on Oct. 26.