Sam’s spring football stops: Horizon High

Week Four of the high school spring football season marks the end of our first peek at what may happen under those Friday Night Lights come August in West Orange and Southwest Orange County.

In those four weeks, we saw the stars live up to their shining potential, coaches establish a culture, position battles emerge and teams begin their championship journeys. 

In the final week of the Florida high school football spring session, we made two final stops to wrap up spring ball in the area.

The team featured in this edition of Sam’s spring football stops is Horizon High.

More from Sam's spring football stops: The First Academy | Foundation Academy | Lake Buena Vista High | Legacy Charter School | Olympia High | West Orange High | Windermere High | Windermere Prep

Horizon High

2023 record: 5-5

Coach: Dennis Thomas, fourth season

Key returners, additions: RB Jamarie Pierre, OL Evan Reinhart, DB Hamzeh Ghassemi and LB Nicholas Grantz

In just three seasons, all under coach Dennis Thomas, Horizon football has established itself as a force in the area. In their young history, the Hawks have compiled a 12-8 combined record the past two seasons. 

Thomas and his Hawks have done this by crafting a simple — yet effective — identity: Play good defense and run the football; all while causing havoc and confusion. 

After watching Horizon beat Poinciana High, 30-20, I can say this with confidence: Expect more of the same type of football in 2024.

Photo by TK_PHOTOGRAPHY

No. 1: It’s not just Jamarie Pierre in the 2024 Hawks backfield

It’s no secret, the Horizon offense is going to run the football. Just turn on the tape and see for yourself. Last season, the Hawks ran the football 379 times to only 72 pass attempts. 

When you have one of the top running backs in the area in rising senior Jamarie Pierre — who rushed for 1,468 yards with 17 touchdowns — there’s not much of a need to throw it. 

“It’s hard to start a program from scratch and try to compete,” coach Dennis Thomas said. “A lot of new schools wouldn’t be able to win a game in its first year, but we won two, and we feel like it’s because of what we do on offense. And what we do on offense is we run a little bit of single wing. That’s not all we do. But we run a little bit of single wing, and we feel like the best thing is to keep the ball on the ground and we’re going to try to run through you. We’re going to try to play old-school football a little bit. And hopefully, we have some great running backs, and we do have some really good running backs this year.”

That’s right. He said, “some.” Not one.

And if you were out at Horizon’s spring game, you would have seen more than just the Hawks star back, you would have seen a few others making their presence known. 

“Obviously, we have Jamarie — who can run a 10.5, 100-meter dash,” Thomas said. “But we also have Kaio (Oliveira), who’s back with us and is an absolute stud. He runs all the inside stuff for us. We have other guys too, like (Emmanuel) Blackwell, like Blake Mottley and Gavin Thomas. We just have a bunch of guys we feel like we can use to just run through people.”

No. 2: Defense will go through its scary secondary

Despite a Bo Kenney-sized hole on the second level of this defense — and his 103 tackles (20 for a loss) and five sacks — the Horizon defense isn’t going to miss a beat in 2024. That’s all because of the special group at the back. 

“The kids take it upon themselves to call it the Dark Side defense, and it works,” Thomas said. “That whole secondary group starts with No. 1, that’s Hamzeh Ghassemi. He’s a great player, a three-year starter. He’s just a hard guy to get a pass on."

"The other corner is our new starter this year, Andrew Miller," Thomas added. "He’s been stepping up all spring, and we really like what we’ve seen. We also have a third corner in Mason Strain; I call him the Nature Boy. He’s got that bleached blond hair, but he just goes out there and gives it all he’s got, and he’s a hard guy to make a play on, too. At safety, we have Andrew Firth (and) Vitor Silvarolli too. He’s a really good player.”

Photo by TK_PHOTOGRAPHY

No. 3: Roster size is impressive for program’s fourth season 

One of the biggest challenges for any athletics program is getting students to participate in a specific sport. That is especially true with a young program and a sport that requires a large amount of participants. 

So one of the most impressive parts of seeing Horizon football’s spring game was seeing the amount of players on the sideline. Although I didn’t count one by one, and would guess a good amount were junior varsity players, I would estimate upward of 70 athletes were suited up and ready to go. For a new program, that’s impressive.

“It’s a testament to this community,” Thomas said. “Our area has a bunch of parents that say, ‘I want my kids to work hard, I want them to play football.’ And they’ve raised money, they’ve supported us.”

Sam Albuquerque is the Sports Editor for the Orange Observer. Please contact him with story ideas, results and statistics.

Email: [email protected] 

Twitter: @SamBAlbuquerque

Instagram: @OrangeObserverSam