By Ken Jackson
Sports Writer

The contingent of Osceola County varsity football teams will be up to eight when Life Christian Academy in Kissimmee moves up from six-man football to the 11-man game.

The green-and-white clad Lions will play a Kickoff Classic on Friday against Foundation Academy at 7 p.m. at Archie Gordon Park.

A 10-game independent schedule will follow, with home games against Cornerstone Charter (Sept. 2), Mandarin Christian (Oct. 7) and All Saints (Nov. 4).

The Lions played the six-man version of the game last year. Coach Mike Bonneville worked with them in anticipation of stepping up to the 11-man game. Bonneville was a receiver at Dr. Phillips High in Orlando from 1996-98, and started on a 1997 team that went undefeated alongside Doug Gabriel, who went on to play at UCF and in the NFL for Oakland and New England from 2003-06.

Bonneville, who played collegiately at Bethune-Cookman, is a disciple of the Gierke brothers, Chip and Bill, longtime coaches in Orlando.

“I wanted the chance to start something new. It was the best advice I ever got from Coach (Bill) Gierke,” he said.

LCA has 83 students in the grade 9-12 portion of the school, which leaves about 40 boys. Bonneville culled enough talent to compete in 7-on-7 tournaments over the summer. The Lions go into Friday’s game with 22 players.

“We’ve got one kid who’s played Pop Warner. No one else has played (in an 11-man game), but we have the raw athletes to compete. We’re ready,” he said

Bonneville said the Lions finished last year’s six-man season with just seven players, but went on undaunted in planning this year’s 11-man program.

“I walked the hallways, motivating whoever I could about the team,” he said. “One by one, more kids came in and started lifting (weights).”

LCA went through spring workouts like the rest of the county teams, and played in a three-team spring jamboree in May. The Lions lost to Cornerstone Academy, 8-6, and Master’s Academy, 14-6, but Bonneville still came away impressed. The team won four of its first five games in the 7-on-7 event against Foundation, Lake Mary Prep, Orlando Christian and Central Florida Christian. That’s in addition to a summer camp in Miami that Bonneville took them to this summer.

“We’ve really surprised ourselves, we’ve been dominant in 7-on-7,” the coach said. “We still have to work on things like tackling and some other technique stuff, but we’re getting close to getting the basics down. Little by little we’re working on schemes now.”

LCA Athletic Director Kevin Hosford said good student population numbers and encouragement from the administration made this a good time to play regular football this fall.

“We’ve got the good athletes, they’ve just never been taught to work together and channel the energy they have,” Hosford, also the school’s basketball coach, said. “It’s ambitious for sure, but our spring games went well and we feel like we’ll compete.”

He said that a varsity football team makes the private school more attractive for future enrollment.

“I’ve talked with people at similar schools in size, and adding football helped enrollment tremendously,” Hosford said. “We feel like the school is going in the right direction.”

He said the school added the equipment it needs in small quantities.

Over the summer, it all fit in a shed behind the main school building except for the lone tackling dummy, which the players named, “Bertha.”

Bonneville has Bertha, but he also has some athletes of the breathing kind that keep him optimistic.

Receivers Leo Nunez (sophomore) and Jorge Rosa (junior) go 6-3 and 6-4. Senior Mike Grabowski and sophomore Najeem Hossain are the candidates to play quarterback.

“Hossain’s a great athlete. He’s going to have an impact at some position,” Bonneville said.

Friday’s date was burned players’ brains all summer.

“We started looking forward to it after basketball ended. Now it’s all football,” said Andre Waterhouse, pegged to play free safety and some receiver.

“We played hard in the spring, and we’re going to be good at the skill positions.”

Rosa said that expectations are high.

“You never go into a season thinking you’ll lose,” he said. “(Friday) is very important. We want to win and then keep going and shock the world.”

Other players who dot the Lions roster include linebackers Antonio Smith and Josh Calderon, receiver Ulises Salinas, defensive backs Luis Torres and Kevin Calderon, and linemen Victor Ruiz, Thomas Molina, Jose Serrano, Kenny Sanchez, Richard Bruno and Belford Aponte.