The Lakewood Spartans played the Palmetto Tigers on Friday night (9/3), winning 15-6. However, the victory was not really a cause for celebration.

During the game, four of the Spartan players were injured, and badly. Three were rushed to the emergency room and the other to urgent care. One player injured was kicker Nate Sosa-Jones, a junior. He dislocated his ankle and broke his tibia and had to have surgery on Sunday (9/5).

Video from the game showed Sosa scrambling to retrieve the ball after a bad snap. He was tackled by the Tiger defense and his foot bent the wrong way.

“Let’s just say if I was going north on US-19, my foot was going east,” Sosa said on Saturday.

Coach Cory Moore said in addition to Sosa, senior  Ramon Davis broke his tibia and fibia and also had surgery on Sunday,  Emmanuel McNeil-Warren suffered a concussion, and Lutarus “T.J.” Adams broke his hand.

“I’ve never seen anything … that transpired like that before,” he said. 

Athletic trainer and health sciences teacher Erika Miller said she has seen similar injuries and even had games where several players went down at the same time.

“But I have never had multiple players down with the severity of injuries that these guys did at the same time,” she said

Three of the four injuries also happened one right after the other.

“It was extremely intense to tend to so many players in one game, especially when three of the major injuries all happened within two plays back-to-back,” Miller said.

During the game the Spartans forced three fumbles, causing two turnovers. Although passing might have not been their strong suit during the last game against Boca Ciega High School, there were three pass completions for over 30 yards, two for touchdowns, in this game.

The team hit a streak of bad luck on Friday with all the injuries, as all these players are starters. Despite the injuries, the Spartans might be able to bounce back and show resilience.

“Even though all four of our players got injured everybody on the team stepped up and played hard and that’s how we came out with victory,” sophomore Jordan Lawrence said.

Miller complimented her five student trainers, who she said were instrumental in helping her out. She said it is hard to know why so many athletes were injured in this one game.

“We had actually made it through most of the game relatively injury-free. …. It’s truly hard to understand,” she said.

–  SNN staff writer ANIYA TRUEBLOOD contributed to this story.