3 takeaways from Wellington football's district rout of Forest Hill

WELLINGTON – Wellington football defeated Forest Hill 36-7 during Monday night’s makeup game from Hurricane Ian, riding Bryant Walker’s big game to emerge victorious in the Wolverines’ district opener.

Though the score might suggest otherwise, it was not a clean nor pretty win – but a win is a win when it comes to all-important district play.

The Wolverines (3-2) allowed several big plays defensively but showed up in equally big moments, tallying key turnovers and goal-line stops that squelched any serious threat of a Falcons (2-3) rally.

The game was decided as much by Wellington’s success as it was Forest Hill’s shortcomings in sustaining drives, something that the Falcons will look to fix.

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Here are three takeaways:

1. Bryant Walker gets Welly going early and often

Walker tallied 63 scrimmage yards in the first quarter alone for Wellington, and went on to double his total in the fourth quarter with a long touchdown run that put the game out of reach.

“On the one bubble route I had for 31 yards, all I could think of was, ‘get the first down, and if I can get more, get more.’ And then there was another play where I ran a bender across the middle of the field, took a bit of a hit, but secured the ball and kept it.”

Both those plays occurred during Wellington’s early offensive success. The first showed Walker’s speed out of the flat; the second demonstrated his game sense and hand strength as he held onto the football despite a big airborne hit.

He finished the game with two touchdowns, setting the bar for the Wellington offense with his explosiveness.

Quarterback Ryan Anthony had success in the ground game and through the air, while Elvick Previlma added his speed to the mix, tallying a long score in the scoring frenzy.

“I think we are probably the fastest team around here,” said Wellington head coach Danny Mendoza. “Obviously we’ll put that to the test coming back to Palm Beach with our schedule now.”

2. Big-play threat serves as silver lining for struggling Falcons

Though Forest Hill won’t be happy with the final score-line, it wasn’t until midway through the fourth quarter that the game was well in hand for Wellington.

The Falcons fell behind 22-0 very quickly in the first quarter but the defense settled in, buoying the squad in the Monday night contest.

The Forest Hill offense will aim to fix a number of inconsistencies on offense, but one thing that wasn’t lacking on Monday night was the individual explosiveness.

The Falcons accounted for over 150 scrimmage yards on just two plays – a second quarter catch and run by Malik Razz that saw him burst through the Wellington secondary, and a 90-plus yard run by Anthony Davis.

“Razz and Andrew are both incredible athletes,” Forest Hill head coach Garrett Necaise said. “Last year, Andre Davis was a little hidden from us but he’s really turned up this year. He’s come a long way. Malik Razz, super fast. Every day, he brings it. He’s a leader and a great role-model.”

The Falcons will look for more success in sustaining drives next week when they travel to play Dwyer.

3. Wolverines eye cleaner play to complement proven strengths

Wellington’s offense and defense showed explosive potential, but were inconsistent, and the penalty tallies for both the Wolverines and their opponents were through the roof on Monday.

“We’ve got to come out and put guys away,” Mendoza said. “You’ve seen it with our two losses. We’ve let teams hang around. We’ve to do a better job of putting them away when it’s time. We had an opportunity in the first half to run that clock and we didn’t get that done.”

Mendoza lamented the team’s two losses to strong Martin County teams, one of which should have ended with a very different result.

“You lose to two 5-1 teams and one of the 5-1 teams, you had them dead to rights,” he said. “We’ve got to do a better job of capitalizing on our opportunities.”

Those opportunities were plentiful on Monday against Forest Hill, but even staked to a 22-7 lead, the advantage never appeared to be a comfortable one.

Forest Hill accounted for more than half of its total yardage in the game on two plays, each taking the Falcons within the Wolverines’ five-yard line.

Without two goal-line stands, including a turnover, it’s possible the score-line looks quite a bit closer – and quite a bit scarier to the Wellington faithful.

“The bend-but-don’t-break [defense], you love to have it, but we would like to not have to bend,” Mendoza said. “But they were resilient tonight and flying all over the place, and that’s what you want to see.”

There were well over two dozen penalties called in the game as well, something both teams will look to clean up.

“Any Palm Beach County team is going to give you some fight and they’re going to be chippy,” Mendoza said. “We’ve got to do a better job of not getting caught second and not reacting. If we clean stuff up, the sky’s the limit for this football team.”

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Wellington football: 3 takeaways from district rout of Forest Hill