Late turnover helps St. Brendan hold off Miami Springs to secure vital district victory

With a huge first half lead and all the momentum they wanted rapidly slipping away, the St. Brendan Sabres were in desperate need of a big play.

They got it from cornerback Kevin White.

With just over 10 minutes left in the game and having seen a 28-7 halftime lead over Miami Springs carved to 28-15 and the Hawks driving again, White stepped in front of a Fabian Rodriguez sideline pass and “housed it” sprinting 60 yards untouched to the end zone.

The score put the finishing touches on a 35-21 St. Brendan victory in what basically amounted to a showdown for the District 15-2M title at Curtis Park.

With only three teams in the district, the Sabres, who moved their overall record to 5-1, need only to defeat a struggling Westland Hialeah program in two weeks to secure their second straight berth in the FHSAA state playoffs.

“I watch a lot of film and knew that their primary target is No. 5 (Dante Alexander) so I figured they would be trying to go to him in that situation,” said White, a two-way star who also plays wide receiver on offense. “I got a good read on the pattern and managed to jump in front and pick it off. Once I had it, it was a matter of outracing everyone to the end zone. It was definitely a big play that we needed because our offense had been struggling in the second half and they (Springs) were starting to catch us. Once I took it to the house, I knew we would be all right.”

And they were but it didn’t happen without a pretty impressive battle from the Golden Hawks who fell to 4-2 and finished 1-1 in the district.

Springs was dominated in the first half as the Sabres, thanks to a muffed Springs punt and mishandled center snap by the quarterback, took advantage of two short fields and scored two touchdowns in the first four minutes. Both were touchdown runs by Widley Jean-Francois to help St. Brendan quickly take a 14-0 lead.

A 70-yard scoring run by Geovanni Tobon early in the second quarter made it 21-0 and, after the Hawks answered with a 10-yard scoring toss from Rodriguez to Alexander, wrapped up the first half dominance with a long drive just before halftime culminating in a 6-yard shovel pass score from quarterback Julian Fresen to Terrell Franklin.

But if St. Brendan had any ideas of coming out and maybe getting a 35-point lead and prompt a running clock, the Hawks had other ideas.

A high snap over the punter’s head resulted in a safety for the Sabres before Springs then took the ensuing kickoff and drove the field before Rodriguez found Randy Maldonado for a 5-yard touchdown toss to make it 28-15. Meanwhile the Springs defense completely shutdown the St. Brendan offense in the second half, not allowing the Sabres a single first down until the final 40 seconds.

If there was a key swing moment in the game, it came just two plays before White’s pick-six.

That’s when Rodriguez found a streaking and wide open Ronnie Jones Jr. behind all the coverage for what would have been a 70-yard touchdown and cut the Sabres lead to six. But Jones dropped the ball creating a 14-point swing two plays later.

“The penalties in the second half absolutely killed us and killed our offensive momentum,” St. Brendan coach Steve Smith said. “You have to learn to close a team out. We had the momentum in the first half. Lost it in the second half, they got the momentum and we had to find a way to get it back and got it with Kevin’s big play. We really needed that.”

Asked about the prospect of securing a second consecutive playoff berth (having never appeared in the playoffs before last season), Smith did what most coaches always do. No looking ahead.

“Our goal each week is to finish 1-0 and that’s it,” Smith said. “We preach that around here religiously. At the end of the day, we work hard to not let’em look ahead. Right now we’ve got Homecoming next week against a very good True North team and that’s as far as this goes.”

This story was originally published September 30, 2023 at 12:44 AM.