Kramar Brown Jr., defensive front lead Dr. Phillips football to regional championship

After an 85-yard, 14-play opening drive by Dr. Phillips High, which can only be described as methodical, was capped off by a short touchdown run by quarterback Stanley Anderson-Lofton, it seemed the Panthers' offense would once again steal the headlines in their Class 7A, Region 3 championship win over visiting Vero Beach High. 

The narrative would be even more stamped in certainty after Anderson-Lofton, a Middle Tennessee commit, found his favorite target, Mykel Calixte, twice for touchdowns in the second quarter to take a 21-0 lead into halftime. 

However, the weather had other ideas. 

In fact, the pouring rain that fell in the third quarter on the cold November night had such an impact on the game that you'd think Charles Dickens wrote a football follow-up to his famed novel and called it "A Tale of Two Halves" because the first-half, high-flying Panthers (12-1) offense stuck to the ground game in the second half and it was the DP defense — led by senior linebacker Kramar Brown Jr. and his late-game pass rushing heroics — that held off the Vero (8-4) comeback and sealed the 21-14 region championship win for coach Rodney Wells and his team. 

"Well, with the rain, the ball was slick and that affected our passing game in the second half," Wells said. "We usually try to stay away from running our quarterback ... but when you have sloppy conditions like we had tonight, it's a great strategy because the defense has to worry about everybody blocking. We didn't want to run Stanley a ton because we felt like we had the game in hand, but we took advantage of his athleticism a few times to add that wrinkle in the offense during the second half. ... We ended up doing enough on offense to give our defense good field position throughout the end there and those guys got stops."

Despite the Panthers' defense holding the opposition scoreless through three quarters, the Vero offense began mounting a comeback in the fourth on the back of two short TD runs by QB Champ Monds — with the second one coming at the 3:14 mark. 

Photo by Sam Albuquerque

Game changer

That's when Brown Jr. turned it on. 

"He's relentless," Wells said. "Last year, he played at defensive end for us because we had a hell of a group of senior linebackers, but this year, we asked him to stand up and play everywhere for us — inside linebacker; at certain times he's played nickel, even a little dime and as you saw tonight, we put him at the edge a lot. That's just the kind of person he is, unselfish. He'll do anything we ask of him and he's got a motor unlike anybody I've seen."

The senior was an absolute menace at the end of this game, not only getting the game-sealing pressure on the Vero QB but racking up multiple sacks and pressures in the final minutes of the game that disrupted any and all attempts the offense made to move the ball down the field. 

Simply put, Brown Jr. took over when his team needed him most and led this once-inexperienced — but now stellar — DP defense to stop after stop, but the senior leader points to the effort his team put in this week during practice as the reason why they won.

"This win was a whole team effort that only happened because of how hard we practiced this week," Brown Jr. said. "We practice intensely every day, so when we come out here on Fridays, we can execute. Tonight, that intensity showed on the field. That intensity showed tonight when we hit them, when we rallied to the ball as a team, and just generally how hard we played."

As for his thoughts on his performance, Brown Jr. sees plenty he can improve on this week as the Panthers prepare for the 7A state semifinal round. 

"There's a lot from tonight that I know I can still improve on," he said. "There were multiple plays where I messed up on my pass-rushing lanes and a few other things. I know I can always get better, and everyone on the team knows we need to keep improving, but we're going to do that, and we're going to win states."

Dr. Phillips will head on the road for the first time this season for its final-four matchup against Seminole County powerhouse, Lake Mary High (11-2). This semifinal battle for a spot in the state championship game is a rematch of the Week 5 classic, which saw the Panthers top the Rams, 26-21, at Bill Spoone Stadium. Kickoff is set for 7:30 p.m. Friday, Dec. 6 at Don T. Reynolds Stadium.