Miami Columbus’ stifling defense blanks Miami Palmetto to continue dominance of rivalry

The Miami Palmetto Panthers entered Saturday night’s showdown with rival Miami Columbus hoping that, after losing four straight times to the Explorers over the past three seasons, that perhaps they had narrowed the gap.

Due to two different weather delays, it took nearly five hours to finish but when it was over, Palmetto players trudged off to their buses knowing that, if anything, the gap between them and Columbus had widened.

Thanks to a dominating performance by its defense, reigning Class 4M state champion Columbus looked like a team ready to repeat that feat as the Explorers shut out Palmetto 15-0 at Tropical Park Stadium.

The win moved Columbus, ranked No. 3 in the Miami Herald’s South Florida Top 20 poll, No. 23 in the nation by MaxPreps, No. 6 in the state regardless of classification and No. 1 in Class 4M, to 4-0 on the season.

Palmetto, ranked No. 10 in the Herald poll, fell to 3-1.

How dominant was the Explorers’ defense?

Palmetto was held to less than 75 yards of total offense and managed a grand total of three first downs the entire game. And two of those were by virtue of personal foul penalties.

Only a slew of Columbus penalties, a blocked field goal by Palmetto and an end zone interception by the Panthers kept the margin of victory from being much wider.

“The entire week we had the mindset that we didn’t want to give up any points and if we could do better than that, why not shut them down completely and that’s pretty much what we managed to do,” Columbus linebacker and defensive captain Hector Chavez, who was in on 10 tackles, said. “It’s a big rivalry game for us so maybe they came out here with a chip on their shoulder but we came out here with chips on both of our shoulders. We hit them in the mouth and took them out of the game early.”

The Columbus offense got its defense all the points it would need by taking the opening kickoff and driving 80 yards in eight plays, quarterback Alberto Mendoza finding Rocco Bradley for a three yard touchdown, just one play after running back Agyeman Addae bolted for a 32-yard gain on third down.

On their first defensive series, the Explorers set the tone for the evening by pushing the Panthers backwards, inside their own 10, before Hezekiah Downs broke free right down the middle and blocked a Palmetto punt out of the end zone for a safety. Just like that it was 9-0.

After the teams traded punts, Mendoza led his offense down the field on another lengthy drive before finding tight end Benjamin Blackburn, a Boston College commit, for an eight yard touchdown with 8:40 left in the second quarter. The ensuing two-point attempt failed and, even though neither team knew it at the time, the scoring for the evening was over.

With 4:44 left in the first half, the game was halted when the lightning detector went off but that delay lasted less than 15 minutes. The teams returned to the field to finish out the first half, Columbus getting a 34-yard field goal blocked in the final seconds.

At halftime, the game went into a lengthy delay that lasted two hours and 10 minutes before eventually both teams got back on the field to resume play.

The Columbus offense then put together its most impressive drive of the night, opening the second half with a marathon 19-play drive that ate up the first 10:20 of the third period.

But a drive that began at their own 20 and made it to the Palmetto four, featuring four third-down conversions and one fourth down, ended in disappointment when Mendoza made his only mistake of the night, throwing into traffic in the back of the end zone where Lawrence Johnson picked it off.

“It definitely had an effect on the team because we came out with a lot of excitement and were ready to go,” said Mendoza of the long delay. “Then a 2-hour delay, the fans leave, the hype goes down and things were kind of very mellow. It’s always tough to stay in the locker room for two hours like that but we managed to finish off what we started. Palmetto is our rival so it’s always a great day when you beat your rival.”

Somebody who was really beaming with pride was Columbus defensive coordinator Alex Trujillo who watched his unit dominate from start to finish.

“You really can’t ask much more than what they gave us out there tonight,” Trujillo said. “It’s Palmetto week and the kids were dialed in all week. They’ve (Palmetto) kind of taken over in terms of being our rival and while I respect their coaching staff tremendously, I think our kids and our coaching staff put together a really good game plan this week and a lot of it was stopping number two (Jacory Barney). He was the most dynamic player on the field on both sides so we were really happy that we were able to limit him and their big plays.”