- November 7, 2025
Fresh off clinching a district championship, Mainland has another football championship in its sights this week — the Daytona Beach championship.
The Bucs will meet Seabreeze in their annual rivalry game at 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 31, at Daytona Stadium. It hasn’t been much of a contest lately with Mainland winning 14 years in a row. The Sandcrabs have been shut out seven times during that span including last year when the Bucs cruised to a 53-0 victory.
But that hasn’t tarnished the luster off the game, Mainland coach Jerrime Bell said.
“Our players know the history of this rivalry,” Bell said. “They’re pretty excited to go out there Friday night and lay claim as the best in the city.”
The Bucs (6-2) are coming off a 50-6 victory at Belleview to clinch the District 4-5A championship with a 2-0 district record. They advanced to the state playoffs for the 32nd consecutive year and will in all likelihood host a regional quarterfinal on Nov. 14.
Quarterback Sebastian Johnson threw three touchdown passes and back-up Keith Simmons threw two more in the win against Belleview. Braylyn Simmons and Josh Dudley each ran for a touchdown. Braylyn Simmons also had a receiving touchdown. He was one of four players to catch touchdown passes with Kadin Flores taking both of his receptions into the end zone for touchdowns of 60 and 46 yards. Chris Butler had five catches for 160 yards and a score.
Defensively, the Bucs had nine tackles for loss, an interception and a fumble recovery. Tamaj Woodard got into the backfield four times for tackles behind the line of the scrimmage.
With one game left in the regular season, the Bucs would like to extend their streak against the Sandcrabs to 15.
“In a perfect world,” Bell said, “we never lose to Seabreeze again.”
But Bell knows that the Sandcrabs (5-4) are on the rise under second-year coach Mike Klein.
Football in the area is always better when Seabreeze and Mainland are good together.
— JERRIME BELL, Mainland football coach
“Football in the area is always better when Seabreeze and Mainland are good together,” Bell said. “Mike’s building them back up slowly and surely in his image. They play a physical brand of football on offense.”
Bell sees a lot of similarities between the path he and Klein have taken in their coaching careers with Klein learning under veteran coach Andy Price at Spruce Creek and Bell learning under former Seabreeze star Billy Glenn at Calvary Christian and then moving to St. Lucie Treasure Coast where he coached under veteran Irvin Jones.
The Bucs are the visitors this year and will be wearing white jerseys, so they are asking their fans to make the game a white-out by wearing white themselves.
With the Bucs dominating the Sandcrabs for more than a decade, attendance has taken a dip for the end-of-year rivalry. These days more fans attend the Mainland-DeLand game than Mainland-Seabreeze, Bell said.
“The community is not as interested in the game anymore, but the rivalry is still there, and there’s pride on both teams,” Bell said. “Hopefully we can get back to the way it used to be. Hopefully we can have a really big crowd Friday with both teams having a record over .500. Hopefully we can get back to the old ways.”
