Preps: Land O' Lakes hopeful Senior Night opponent can be found

Land O’ Lakes boys coach Mark Pearson sent out the e-mail on Friday afternoon.

The Gators had just received word from Gulf High that it was going to have to cancel their scheduled Jan. 13 game. Not a good situation for Land O’ Lakes, since their final regular season home game of the season was meant to be Senior Night for the team. So Pearson sent out a request to numerous local high school coaches in search of a replacement.

Fortunately for the Gators, it appears as though a solution, and replacement, is going to be found.

“(Clearwater Central Catholic) are trying to see if they can move a game, as well as Gaither and possibly even Sickles,” Pearson said. “We’re keeping our fingers crossed and hoping that someone can come through for us and pick up that game for us.”

The common thread between the three schools Pearson mentioned and the Gators is Hillsborough County United, at which Pearson and CCC coach Jim Harte, Gaither coach Eric Sims and Sickles coach Tony Calvo all coach at outside of their high school soccer positions.

“One thing about our community is that we’re very close-knit,” Pearson said. “We’re very competitive against one other, but we’ll try to help each other out whenever we can. It’s great to know that you can send out an e-mail and get responses back like that. It’s unfortunate it came out the way it did, but we’re hoping it can get resolved.”