St. Thomas Aquinas crushes Tampa Jesuit to earn chance to win four state titles in a row
By now, the winning and success has become almost routine.
But that didn’t mean St. Thomas Aquinas players and coaches couldn’t celebrate with plenty of glee on Friday night as the final seconds ticked off the clock at Brian Piccolo Field.
The Raiders are headed back to a place they have become quite familiar with over the decades – the state championship game.
St. Thomas put all of its brute power and impressive talent on full display for everyone to see as they dusted defending Class 6A state champion Tampa Jesuit 45-3 in a Class 3M state semifinal. The Raiders, ranked No. 7 in the nation by Max Preps, remained perfect at 13-0 and advance to the 3M title game on Thursday, Dec. 15 right up the road at DRV PNK Stadium.
There they will take on Homestead, which traveled to Orlando and knocked off Jones in the opposite semifinal, in what will amount to a first-ever state championship game between a Miami-Dade and Broward County team.
This will mark state championship game number 22 for the Raiders who improved to 22-4 all-time in state semifinal games. Not only will St. Thomas have a chance to add to its already state record of 13 state titles with No. 14, but the Raiders will have a chance to do something no Broward program, including them, have ever done and that’s win four consecutive state championships.
“A good effort tonight all around,” Aquinas coach Roger Harriott said. “A little bit of a slow start in the first quarter but eventually we got things going with some nice special teams plays and the pick six. Once we get up on teams, we try our best to keep it moving in the right direction and we did that out there tonight.”
Harriott referred to Aquinas’ impressive night on special teams which accounted for three of the team’s six touchdowns and defense which accounted for another thanks to a 70-yard interception return by King Mack late in the first half that staked the Raiders to a 21-3 advantage at the half.
After a sluggish first quarter that saw its offense unable to even produce a single first down, St. Thomas got the spark it needed with its first big special teams play of the night. That when, after Michael Kern boomed a 64-yard wind-aided punt all the way to the five yard line, Jesuit’s Andre Gilbert muffed it. When he scrambled to retrieve the ball in the end zone and tried to run it out, he was clobbered at the one yard line and the ball popped out. It trickled into the end zone where Maurice Marcellus fell on it for the touchdown and 7-0 St. Thomas lead.
After Jesuit put up its only points of the night on a long 50-yard field goal, the Raider offense answered with its nicest drive of the night, going 80 yards in 12 plays with running back Jordan Lyle going over from 4 yards out to make it 14-3 with 4:55 left in the first half.
It was here that Mack, a Penn State commit, took over the show. Four plays after Lyle scored, he read a deep post pattern perfectly and jumped the route picking off Jesuit freshman quarterback Will Griffin at his own 30 and bolted 70 yards for the pick-six touchdown.
“Watching film we saw that their quarterback loved to throw it to the seem,” Mack said. “We were in a cover one and I saw the seem man wide open and knew that’s where he was going and I just jumped the route. Once I had the ball I just took off to the left side and what a great feeling when I saw nothing but green turf. It was a great feeling.”
Mack wasn’t done. When the Tigers (9-5) kicked off to start the second half, there he was again, taking the kickoff, cutting to his left through a gaping hole and it was off to the races. Eighty-five yards later he was trotting into the end zone for the score to make it 28-3 and Jesuit was on life support.
After Hezekiah Harris scored from a yard out on a quarterback sneak midway through the third quarter, placekicker Nicholas Romero connected on a 35-yard field goal with 2:55 left in the third to make it 38-3 and get the running clock moving.
The win also avenged a tough last-second 24-21 loss to Jesuit a year ago when Aquinas traveled to Tampa for a regular season game, marking the last time the Raiders have lost a game. It was something King had not forgotten.
“We came into this game knowing that last year they had beaten us in Tampa and we were thinking about that game all week and really wanted to come out here tonight and take care of business,” King said. “With this being the last game on our home field with these seniors, we wanted to close things out in style and exact a little revenge from last year and that’s what we did. What an opportunity in front of us now. We’re really looking forward to the championship game.”
This story was originally published December 3, 2022 at 1:10 AM.