No. 5 St. John Bosco cruises to weather-shortened win over Manatee

BRADENTON, Fla.- Unlike Trinity League rival Mater Dei, who will be making its first-ever trip to Florida this weekend, St. John Bosco is plenty familiar with the Sunshine State.

It’s safe to say after Friday night’s trip to Joe Kinaan Field at Hawkins Stadium that the Braves might want to make this an annual trip to face someone in Florida.

St. John Bosco notched its third win in Florida over the last three years as the nation’s No. 5 ranked team rolled to a 31-0 defeat of Manatee on Friday night in one half of play.

Game was called at halftime due to inclement weather in the area.

St. John Bosco feels right at home in Florida

Though St. John Bosco’s trip to Florida on Friday night ended prematurely, it was successful in the fact that they improved to 3-0 in the last three years when visiting the Sunshine State.

In the last three seasons coming down to Florida, the Braves have beaten the likes of Chaminade-Madonna Prep, St. Thomas Aquinas and now, Manatee.

For Jason Del Negro’s bunch, they have come down to the hot, humid state and out-scored the three opponents 85-34. What has been evident is all the talk of California schools not being able to withstand the Florida heat is fictitious as the Braves remains undefeated playing in the Sunshine State.

Whether they’re playing in the cool, sunny skies of Southern Cali or down in Fort Lauderdale or now Bradenton, St. John Bosco proved they feel right at home in the Southeast.

Manatee held out a little longer than expected

It’s not a well kept secret that this isn’t last year’s Class 5A state semifinalist Manatee Hurricane team.

The Hurricanes came within minutes of reaching Florida’s 5A state championship game, which may have led to the ambitious scheduling of St. John Bosco, one of the country’s premier high school football programs.

In theory, these are the kind of games Manatee used to play on a annual basis in the days of legendary head coach Joe Kinaan, whose name the field bares. The Hurricanes nearly held out for three quarters of the first period in keeping the Braves off the scoreboard, but once St. John Bosco scored, they just simply could not be stopped.

St. John Bosco piled on an avalanche of points in the second quarterback, 21 to be exact, as sophomore quarterbackKoa Malau’ulu (9 of 12, 121 yards, three touchdowns) started to heat up.

This is a much younger Hurricanes team that maybe is a year or two away from being able to seriously compete with the state’s elites once again. For now, they’ll keep plugging away behind a team that’s more sophomore and junior laden.

Braves’ offense is going to be tough to stop

So we already made a mention of Malau’ulu at quarterback, but the sophomore wasn’t the only player on the Braves’ offense that showed out on Friday night.

Joining the young quarterback in the offensive explosion in the first and only half of play was Texas A&M commitment Madden Williams, who finished the contest catching three passes for 66 yards and a touchdown.

Along with Williams was the Oklahoma commitmentDaniel Odom (three catches, 63 yards, touchdown), San Jose State commitCarson Clark (two catches, 17 yards, touchdown) and sophomore Darren Tubbs(three catches, 32 yards, touchdown).

It didn’t stop with the receiving corps as St. John Bosco also had it going on via the ground game, with Maliq Allenand Ashton Keys combined for 64 yards rushing.

Imagining this group playing another half of ball against Manatee’s defense could’ve easily turned into a 50-plus point performance to start the season.