- June 14, 2025
-
-
Loading
Loading
The Braden River High football team is building after a rocky 2024 season, but that doesn’t mean the Pirates are resigning themselves to another losing season.
A year after shuffling coaches and losing players, the Pirates want to win now.
Former head coach Curt Bradley left Braden River for Southeast following the 2023 season, and longtime offensive coordinator Eric Sanders was promoted to head coach. However, Sanders left to coach at Palmetto after just four months.
In came Jason Grain.
A former offensive lineman for the University of Southern California, Grain joined the Booker High coaching staff as an assistant in 2012 before becoming the head coach at Cape Coral Oasis from 2021-23.
Grain, who was hired to coach Braden River in June of 2024, not only lost out on the spring season, but also lost several players.
Kicker Brunno Reus, offensive guard Evan Spencer and wide receiver Landon Green transferred to Venice. Versatile Yashua Edwards and defensive end Myles Holmen transferred to Riverview. cornerback/wide receiver Marcus Galloway transferred to Cardinal Mooney, wide receiver Reece Wilson transferred to Southeast and linebacker Ronin Dangler transferred to Manatee.
Those losses, coupled with the graduation of 18 seniors, left the Pirates lacking depth and experience.
It showed during the 2024 season.
Braden River finished last season 2-7 and lost five games by 30 points or more.
It will likely take the Pirates some time to build back into a winning program again, but Grain isn’t counting that out from happening sooner than some might expect.
“I’m not 30 anymore,” said Grain, who is 47 years old. “I’m getting old. I’m not trying to coach until I’m 70. I want to win. So, I mean rebuilding and all that sounds good, but we’re trying to win games.”
Grain knows what it takes to build a team into a winner.
Oasis went 4-13 in Grain’s first two seasons, but finished 6-4 in 2023 — the program’s first season with six wins since 2011.
Still not even a full year into his coaching career at Braden River, Grain has a more optimistic outlook on this upcoming season.
Rising senior linebacker Storm Hense, who Grain called the ‘best player on the defense,’ is healthy this spring after an injury limited him to just two games last year.
There are also promising returners on the defensive line, including rising junior David Louis, who Grain said emerged as a playmaker over the final three games in 2024.
The Pirates also made a key addition.
Louisen Desinor, a transfer from Southeast, will take over at quarterback following the graduation of Lucas Despot.
Desinor, a rising junior, passed for 1,877 yards and 16 touchdowns for a 5-5 Seminoles team last season. He was undeterred by Braden River’s record, and said the Pirates’ bounce-back mentality can be a rallying point.
“You know, when you have the mentality that you have something to prove, it just makes people even more hungry,” he said. “When you’re surrounded by people with that mindset, it pushes you.”
Disproving the doubters has been a theme for Braden River this spring.
Wide receiver Nicholas Cinelli, a player who Desinor highlighted as one of his favorite targets, is a rising senior who is itching to silence the trash talk he hears around school.
“I’m just excited to prove everyone wrong,” Cinelli said. “People say we’re going to go 0-10, we’re trash, we’re terrible, but nobody’s out here. They don’t know, and we’re going to prove them all wrong.”
The Pirates will have their first chance to reset the narrative in their spring game against Cape Coral Mariner on May 22 at 7 p.m. at Braden River High School.
