Playoff Preview: Lakeland vs. Kissimmee Osceola

Lakeland will travel to Osceola as the 7A-5 district runner up to face the 7A-6 Champions for the first round match up of the FHSAA football playoffs.

Lakeland is an impressive 9-1. Only loss coming to the hands of the district Champions, Kathleen Red Devils. Osceola ended their regular season at 8-2, lost 2 of the first 3 games and then won the last 7 games of the season.

Lakeland leads the All-Time series 10-3 and Lakeland is 3-2 when playing at Osceola. In playoff games, the Dreadnaughts sill holds a 2 game advantage, 4-2 lead in the Playoffs.

The first meeting between the two teams was in 1993 in 26-2 Lakeland win. The game was played at Lakeland. They did not see each other again until 2002 when Lakeland won the first playoff matchup 38-14 at Lakeland.

Lakeland would win 6 straight games in the span of 2008 – 2011, three of those games were playoff games.

Interesting note: In 2007 the 25-21 Osceola win at Lakeland ended Lakeland’s 53 game winning streak.

These two teams are very familiar with each other and have a history. Osceola defeated Lakeland last season 16-2 at Osceola in the playoffs. So the Kowboys are not intimidated and could have a formula for success.