Bay set to travel to West Florida Friday

PANAMA CITY, Fla. (WJHG/WECP) -Count Jeremy Brown and his Bay Tornadoes among the 12 area teams getting set for playoff openers Friday. Bay looking ahead to its first playoff game since 2016. The Tornadoes doing so sans momentum, you might say, coming off a 41-6 loss to undefeated Northview last week. so they’re looking to rebound big time. They are taking their 8-2 record west with them tomorrow night to take on 7-2 West Florida. Bay the champs of 2S District 2, the Jags the champs of 2S-1. Even though Bay won it’s district championship, which did guarantee them a state berth, it did not deliver a home playoff opener. Bay head coach Jeremy Brown says that’s disappointing.

“It’s a little frustrating.” coach Brown told me. “You know what I mean. You go out there during the year and we don’t have any control of who is in our district. You know you go out and win your district and you expect to have a home game. I think West Florida probably, they could have been in the same boat you know what I mean. They won their district and up to the last minute had to worry about having to travel. Just seems kind of odd because it seems like for me, why have districts? Just say hey we’re going to take the best eight teams with the RPI and we’re going to let the chips fall where they may.”

Brown says the team had to deal with the Northview loss quickly, learn from it and move on. He says they’re getting set to face a potent West Florida offense led by senior quarterback Markell Redding.

“He’s electric with the ball in his hands.” Brown says “They’ve got a couple of receivers that can really run and they spread you out. They attack the whole field probably as good as any team we’ve, definitely better than any team we played this year. Just moving the ball around running and throwing. The quarterback can run it and throw it, they’ve got a running back that’s really electric out of the backfield. So they make you defend all three areas of the field. So we’ve got to really really dial in on defense and not give a big plays.”

That game Friday set for 7 and is one of several we’ll feature on Friday Night Overtime. The other playoff games on tap this week are Holmes at Freeport, Wewahitchka at Blountstown, Cottondale at Aucilla Christian, Bozeman at Baker, all on the 1R level. Other 2S games include South Walton at FSU and Walton at Suwannee. In 3S Choctaw travels to St. Augustine, that now a Saturday game. And in 4S Niceville hosts Crestview.

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