Miami Palmetto’s Kevin Mujica is the Miami-Dade Flag Football Coach of the Year
Miami Palmetto got creative to win the first flag football state championship in Miami-Dade County history.
Kevin Mujica knew creativity could give the Panthers an edge and it’s why he’s the Miami Herald’s Miami-Dade County Flag Football Coach of the Year.
Mujica started Palmetto’s flag football team just three years ago and the Panthers never even made the Florida High School Athletic Association playoffs until this year, when they ran through the entire field to claim the county’s first state title.
Palmetto lost just one game all season — a one-point loss to perennial Miami-Dade powerhouse Edison — and then won their first six postseason games by 112 points before eking out two wins in the final four by seven combined points.
In the Class 2A championship, the Panthers trailed by five in the final seconds, took the ball out of the hands of quarterback Ava Alvarez — the Herald’s Miami-Dade County Flag Football Player of the Year — and scored a touchdown on a lateral play with four seconds left to beat Ruskin Lennard, 26-25.
Above all else, Palmetto won with balance, including plays like the championship-winning lateral. Although Alvarez topped 3,000 total yards as one of the best dual-threat quarterbacks in the state, not a single Panther reached 800 yards from scrimmage or scored more than 10 touchdowns, but five had at least 500 yards from scrimmage and eight scored at least five touchdowns.
“A lot of teams from up north are basic on offense,” said Mujica, 32. “We do a lot of double- and triple-quarterback stuff. ... It’s a lot of eye candy to mess with the defense, and our girls trust me to call the right plays.”
With the season on the line and Alvarez already past 200 passing yards in the title game, Mujica instead called a play to get the ball to Serenity Simon on a lateral and the athlete scored the championship-winning touchdown.
“To be the first team from Miami to win state is unbelievable,” Mujica said. “This year, we were [Greater Miami Athletic Conference] champs, district champs, regional champs and now state champs, and there’s no better feeling.”