Chris Channing is the new head coach at George Jenkins following Richard Tate’s departure back to Ridge Community where he was at before coming to Jenkins, and although the Eagles have yet to find a consistent winning pattern, they’ve got some chances on the defensive side of the ball to help Channing taste a little bit of success in his first season.
The Eagles were just 5-25 under Tate in his three seasons, and aren’t much better spanning the fast five with a 9-41 composite record. Their last winning season is was essentially by default finishing 5-5 on the field, but gaining a win due to a forfeiture by Lakeland to finish 6-4. The last official winning season in the field was 2002 when they were 7-4 and in the postseason under Casey Vaughn.
Last season, the Eagles finished with district 8A-7 victories over Haines City 46-25 and Kissimmee-Liberty in one of the years’ most-intriguing final scores, 2-0. They also played Bartow extremely close in week one before dropping that one 7-3 and if could’ve picked up another district victory over Kissimmee-Gateway in October–a game they dropped 20-14–would have actually found themselves in thick of the postseason race believe it or not.
With that in mind, we look to highlight five potential impacts for the Eagles that could certainly help matters until they find their offense, and four of them are just members of the Class of 2018, so needless to say there’s hope that winning will find its way over to Jenkins.
The Eagles most-publicized player is weak-side defensive end, Jordan Domineck who plays basketball as well. Domineck was listed at 6-2/200 last season, but has increased that size in terms of weight and looked extremely athletic on the hardwood during the winter for Jenkins. Domineck holds an offer from Florida Atlantic and is currently a top-ten returner county-wide according to polkcountyfootball.com as well. He is one of those that hail from the class of 2018.
The other three guys from the Class of 2018 that could make life easier for Channing are a pair of linebackers and a safety. Vance “Jayden” Monroe and Kyle Rowan were active at E7 and turned in very solid performances. Monroe was listed at 6-1/200 last season and certainly has worked on that frame in the weight room as evidenced by his appearance at E7. Safety Dezden Flowers checks-in at 5-10/160, but played very well in his reps at the event and shows sparks of becoming a solid player in the secondary.
Rounding out that group of five on the defensive side is the lone-upperclassmen, Tony Lapine. The 5-10/225 nose guard/defensive tackle was fun to watch in his 1-on-1’s in the DL group in Lakeland and Lapine’s core strength was an issue for some high-profile guys along the offensive line at times. Lapine’s work on that day left a nice impression and the idea that Jenkins might not be as far-off from making noise as some would think if these players–and others find their mojo once the pads come on.
The Eagles will face Frostproof in their spring game on May 20th.