Big plays lift Dr. Phillips football past West Orange, 33-11

Entire football games can swing in a matter of moments, and in the latest edition of one of West, Southwest Orange County's oldest rivalry games — the Ole Orange Crate game — it only took a few moments for Dr. Phillips High to swing the game in their favor at the end of the second quarter and ultimately beat West Orange High, 33-11.

In the final minutes of the first half, Dr. Phillips (8-1) senior quarterback Stanley Anderson-Lofton evaded the pressure by the Warriors' (8-2) defensive front and found receiver Tavion Greaves 30 yards down the field in the endzone for the touchdown and to extend its lead to 19-3. 

On the ensuing possession, the Panthers defense forced a quick stop and got the ball back to Anderson-Lofton and the potent DP offense with :41 seconds left before halftime. 

Again, the senior quarterback led his team down the field using a combination of his arm and legs to make big plays and eventually find receiver Brandan Johnson for the touchdown as time expired. 

In a matter of game minutes, Dr. Phillips turned a 13-3 lead at the end of the second quarter into a 26-3 advantage at halftime. 

"I think we have one of the better receiving cores in Central Florida, and obviously, we have one of the best quarterbacks in Central Florida and tonight the protection was really, really good," said Dr. Phillips coach Rodney Wells. "We had a couple of run throughs that we have to clean that up, but the protection was there and If you give Stanley time to find our receivers, they're going to do what they did tonight." 

With one more game on its schedule before the playoffs, a rescheduled district matchup against East Ridge High, Dr. Phillips looks to be clicking as it gears up for the playoffs. Still, Wells wants his team to clean up a few things before the Panthers start the postseason.

"I like that we're playing fast right now, but we have to improve on these penalties on both sides of the ball," he said. "A couple of those penalties we had came on a fourth down, on a third down, where we jumped offsides, and then we had a personal foul. Those are little things that we just got to clean up."

For West Orange, despite the big plays, Warriors coach Geno Thompson saw some things he liked from his team.

"I thought the defense overall played well, especially if you take out those big shots," he said. "Hats off to Dr. Phillips; it's a great program, Stanley; obviously, he won the FACA Player of the Year for a good reason. We couldn't bring him down tonight. We got to him in the backfield a couple of times; we just couldn't bring him down, and it turned into a scramble drill. He did a great job locating his receivers in those scrambled drills, and we definitely know what we need to work on this next week. ... Offensively, I thought we played well. We were kind of able to control the ball and march down the field a couple of times. We just have to be able to finish. We had two situations where we were in the red zone and didn't score."