Cypress Bay Lightning Preview

Posted by KT2000 at September 28, 2008

Cypress Bay Lightning

Cypress Bay is located in a booming suburban area west of Fort Lauderdale (Weston).  It was one of the nation’s largest high schools recently with over 5000 students, but the enrollment was capped due to an overflowing campus.  Of course, Cypress Bay is classified as 6A in Florida.  6A is Florida’s highest classification.

Cypress Bay isn’t known as a powerhouse in Florida given their young history, but they hired Coach Guandolo last year to change that.  Guandolo was previously at Hollywood Chaminade-Madonna Prep in Florida (2005 state champion), and is regarded as one of the top coaches in Florida.  Guandolo brought Chaminade-Madonna (2A private school) to Texas a few years ago to play Tyler Lee at Rose Stadium.  Tyler Lee won that game 35-28.  Cypress Bay earned Guandolo his 200th career win against Western on September 18th.  The Lightning run a Wing T offense and 3-3-5 base defense.  Cypress Bay doesn’t have a very deep team, so conditioning has been a big emphasis of Coach Guandolo’s.

The Lightning went 10-2 overall last year.  They lost to Boyd Anderson (Lauderdale Lakes, FL) in the regular season 32-26, and ended their season against a talented North Miami Beach team in the second round of the playoffs (32-20).  That North Miami Beach team was actually good enough to hang with last year’s undefeated Miami Northwestern team.  So, Cypress Bay came into this season confident after recording the school’s most successful season to date last year.  This season, they are where most expected them to be at this point record wise.  The Florida pundits expected them to be better than last year.  Boyd Anderson is Cypress Bay’s best win so far.  They are regarded as a top Broward County team and beat the Lightning last year.

Senior RB Jason Douglas and junior RB David McKnight have done the bulk of the damage in Cypress Bay’s Wing T offense so far.  Douglas is the workhorse, but the Wing T spreads carries around.  The Lighting attack is firmly based on running the football.  They may only pass 5 or so times a game, but they generally run the ball well enough and don’t need to do much more than that.  The offensive line is regarded as one of the best units in Florida this year.  The highlight of the Lightning defense is the talented linebacking crew.  All three starters are regarded as Division 1 college prospects.  Despite being a very large school, depth is thin and players will go both ways.

Cypress Bay travels to Katy after a bye week.

General Impressions

I’ve been following Florida football for a little over 10 years now.  I started following Florida HS ball after a contact of mine sent me tape of Anquan Boldin (current Arizona Cardinal Pro Bowl WR, Florida State) playing for state power Pahokee HS (Lake Okeechobee school).  Boldin was a QB for Pahokee’s 1998 state finalist team.  Per capita, no area in the country produces more pro talent than the Pahokee/Belle Glade area around the lake.  I have several family connections in Florida, so that also piqued my interest.

I haven’t seen Cypress Bay play football, but everything I’ve heard about Coach Guandolo suggests he’s a very good coach.  He brought a very competitive team to Tyler’s Rose Stadium a few years ago.  It will be important that the Tigers play sound fundamental football this week because Cypress Bay is the kind of team that will make you pay for mistakes.  They showed this in their win over Dillard.  The Broward/Dade County area is produces some of the best talent in the country on an annual basis, so Cypress Bay’s talent obviously must be respected.

A key for Katy this week, as it has been all year so far, will be establishing the running game against a talented defense.  I think the Tigers have been well prepared for this game because of the tough games against North Shore, The Woodlands and Marcus.  Oak Ridge gave the Tigers a look at some of the principles they’ll see in the Cypress Bay offense this week.  Cypress Bay will be more comparable in talent to our first three opponents.  Of course, the Cypress Bay players haven’t traveled like this before so I think that is a factor worth monitoring.  Coach Guandolo has previous experience traveling to Texas, so I think he will have his team prepared for the trip.

The trench and turnover battles will decide this game.  Katy struggled mightily in both areas in the first two games, but showed progress the last two weeks.  The Tigers need to continue improving in order go into district play with a third consecutive win.

THE BASICS:

Cypress Bay Lightning
Weston, Florida
2008 Record (3-0)
Coach- Mark Guandolo (200 career wins)
Class 6A (State AP #5, Broward/Dade County #3)
Colors- Navy and Gold

Lightning Results
Cypress Bay 38  Fort Lauderdale Dillard 23
Cypress Bay 29  Boyd Anderson 27
Cypress Bay 35  Western 3

Game articles:
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/

CBHS Web Site:
http://www.cypressbayhighschool.com/

CBHS Booster Club News (w/ articles and photos of first three games):
http://www.cbhsbooster.us/news.html

Senior D1 Prospects:
RB Jason Douglas (5′8, 175)
LB Shane Gordon (6′2, 220)
LB Austin Gamble (6′0, 220)
LB Phil Walker (6′1, 210)
DB Carl Miles (5′10, 170)