Niceville playoff run buoyed by rugged schedule

NICEVILLE – As Niceville (10-0) prepares for Friday night’s Class 4A regional semifinal matchup against district rival and cross-county nemesis Fort Walton Beach (6-4), the Eagles do so boasting quite an impressive resume in successfully maneuvering their way through as challenging of a regular season schedule as any team could face.

First there was the season-opener at then fourth-ranked Tallahassee Lincoln, a back-and-forth battle that saw the Eagles – then ranked No. 3 in Class 4A – eek out a 41-34 triumph. Next came a gritty 28-20 win at Pine Forest, a team which just a year prior had been responsible for the Eagles’ lone losses of the year.

One week later Niceville, which was without the services of reigning Daily News Player of the Year Roy Finch, who had suffered a concussion in the win at Pine Forest, gutted out a 24-21 win over a talented Godby team. In all, Niceville’s run to a 9-0 regular season mark, not to mention a District 2-4A title, witnessed the Eagles’ notch wins over seven playoff-bound teams.

As much as Niceville coach John Hicks would like to say the formidable schedule was all part of a greater plan to better equip his team for a playoff run, that wasn’t necessarily the case.

“It (came down to) who we could get to play us, really,” Hicks said. “Everyone knew we had a good team coming and a lot of teams just didn’t want to play us. The only other teams that did were those that were pretty much playoff teams: Lincoln, Godby, Pace, all of those teams.

“We weren’t jumping up and down to play each other but we all had a hard time getting games,” Hicks said.

As daunting a task as the schedule seemed to provide in August, there is little doubt Niceville is better prepared for late November, and perhaps December, because of it.

“It helps us know we can get through adversity,” senior linebacker Michael White said. “If anything bad happens we can keep battling through the game and pull out a win.”

Junior quarterback Kyle McDorman, who began the year hoping to take sole ownership of the starter’s role, believes the difficult regular season schedule not only expedited his development under center but also helped fortify an already strong bond between the players in the Eagles’ locker room.

“It helped a lot because we knew if we could beat teams like that it lets us know that we can pretty much hang with anybody,” McDorman said.

According to Finch, perhaps the greatest benefit of the strong non-district portion of the schedule is the sense of confidence gained by having already been pushed to the brink only to answer with a win. It is that confidence Niceville has taken with it each and every week since that season-opening win over Lincoln.

“It’s been big,” Finch said. “Our schedule has been tough, we’ve been playing tough teams all year. We’ve been down in tough games and we’ve fought back and won those games, so it really helps us out in the playoffs to know what type of team we have.”