Carnes carries Hurricanes

BRADENTON - A lot of teams are paying the price for what Booker High did to Brion Carnes.

The Manatee High quarterback suffered the worst game of his three-year varsity career against Booker in the second game this season and has been on a mission to prove that it was just an off-night.

The junior turned in one of the finest games of his career when he shredded the Sarasota High defense for 225 yards passing in leading the Hurricanes to a non-district 34-7 victory on Friday night at Hawkins Stadium.

Carnes completed nine of his first 10 passes for 204 yards and two touchdowns in the first half when Manatee took a 20-0 lead. He only threw four passes in the second half, but one was 48-yard TD pass to fullback O.J. Mayo.

Carnes and Ace Sanders hooked up for two big touchdown passes in the first quarter. On the 'Canes' first passion of the game, he hit the junior for a 38-yard touchdown, and with 6:33 left before halftime, they connected on a 73-yard TD bomb for their 20-0 lead.

"We put in a lot of time working on our passing game this week and studied and studied and I came out throwing the ball real good," Carnes said. "Ever since the Booker game, I've pushed myself to work harder and learn from my mistakes from that game. The receivers were catching it and making positive yards All our receivers are capable of making big plays."

On its third possession of the game, Manatee (4-1) went 75 yards on 10 plays and scored on a 6-yard run by Ben Axon. The senior tailback had 77 yards on 10 carries, all in the first half..

Sarasota (1-4) put its only drive of the game together when it took the second-half kickoff and went 88 yards on 16 plays, consuming nine minutes and 21 seconds. The march was capped off on a 3-yard touchdown run by Artavious Curry. Manatee committed three penalties during the drive and finished the night with 13 penalties for 98 yards.

"I am real concerned about those penalties. We didn't have good focus coming out the second half defensively," Manatee head coach Joe Kinnan said. "They had the ball almost nine and a half minutes, and that is not acceptable. We did a good job striping the ball and creating turnovers, but we didn't capitalize on them as much as we would've liked to."

Sarasota managed only 124 yards on the ground and 79 passing. The Sailors had nine fumbles and lost three of them, but even the ones they recovered hurt the drives they were trying to put together. They had three sophomores in their starting backfield.

"We were in the right places this week, but we've got to do a better job of tackling," Sarasota head coach Bob Perkins said. "It was horrible (the fumbles) and we have to work on ball security. We just have to look at the positives and take what we can as coaches.

"Brion is a good quarterback with a great group of receivers, and that makes things tough. but I was proud with the way we took that second- half drive and went downfield and scored."

Gabarri Reaves, Ortavious Simmons and Deonta Huggins had fumble recovers for Manatee, and Brooke Peters had one for Sarasota. Manatee linebacker Ervin Johnson recorded his sixth sack of the season.