WINK News Game of the Week: Dunbar at Port Charlotte

The WINK News Game of the Week pits two of the strongest teams in southwest Florida against each other: Dunbar and Port Charlotte.

But how will they perform after having a week off of practice because of Hurricane Milton?

Head coaches Sammy Brown and Jordan Ingman told WINK News coming back on Monday was rough.

"We're really sluggish, it's day two," Dunbar Head Coach Sammy Brown said. "We should be fine. We hope to get to the game Friday, just healthy and we'll see what happens."

"You could see the guys trying to practice at the expectation we have, but physically their bodies weren't, you know, you can't simulate what we do at football practice, outside of football practice," Port Charlotte Head Coach Jordan Ingman said.

The players did what they could to condition on their own.

"Some of the players, like, we met up by ourselves and threw and we made sure we were staying active so we didn't kind of take a fall off," Port Charlotte senior quarterback Logan Flaherty said.

Both squads are counting on excitement to get them through the game on Friday.

The Pirates have a sort of new season mentality because they haven't played a game since Sept. 27.

"They're excited, because sometimes you get in that mid-season grind," Ingman said. "Football is such a preparation based sport that sometimes, you know, it can become monotonous and I think anytime you go through something like that, it makes you appreciate the opportunity to go through that grind."

Dunbar is in a similar boat, having not played since Oct. 4.

"We're just going with our normal routine, trying to get the guys to love one another, trying to get them to get back acclimated to doing the right things," Brown said.

Senior lineman Mint Edwards said the tigers are also confident they'll come back strong post hurricane.

"We're in football season, so we got to get through that, taking one week at a time," Edwards said. "We got through it. We'll bounce back on Friday."

The Tigers and the Pirates return to the gridiron in a district battle at 7:30 p.m. on Friday.

Friday night is "linemen appreciation night" at Port Charlotte. The Pirates plan to feed the linemen who are stationed across the street from the school for Hurricane Milton recovery.