91-0 rout tough for both sides to take

Associated Press

ESTERO, Fla. — The Estero High football staff gathered in head coach Rich Dombroski's office late Friday, almost in stunned silence.

Earlier that night, Estero lost to Naples High by 13.

Not by 13 points. By 13 touchdowns. That's right: Naples 91, Estero 0. The rout fallout has been growing since the game ended.

"It was David versus Goliath," Dombroski said, "and David didn't have a stone to throw."

A half-hour away in Naples, Eagles Coach Bill Kramer — the man on the winning end — wasn't as lighthearted about it.

He said he looked at the scoreboard late in the game, saw 91-0, and felt sick to his stomach.

Kramer's team ran 31 plays, and he kept most of his best players on the sideline — for the entire game in some cases.

But still Kramer knew what was coming.

Soon after the game ended, his inbox began filling with angry e-mail messages, some from Estero parents wondering why so many points were necessary, some from Naples parents wondering why their kids didn't play more in an effort to pad their stats.

"There's only one way to describe it," Kramer said. "Just bizarre."

The national record books are incomplete, but a score like 91-0 won't register a blip on the list of all-time defeats. It wasn't even the most lopsided score in the country this weekend — in Ohio, Beechcroft beat Centennial 96-0, taking knees on plays in the fourth quarter to avoid triple figures.