St. Thomas Aquinas picking up momentum after comfortable win over Columbus

Still trying to shake off the sting of a disappointing and heartbeaking three point season-opening loss to No. 1 nationally-ranked Mater Dei from California two weeks ago, St. Thomas Aquinas traveled south to Miami-Dade County on Friday night and took out its frustrations on the Columbus Explorers.

The Raiders, still ranked No. 10 nationally by Max Preps despite the loss, scored early and often on their way to delivering a 42-7 rout of the Explorers at Tropical Park Stadium.

Aquinas improved to 2-1 while Columbus, following an out of town loss in Maryland last week to Our Lady of Good Counsel and unable to finish its season-opener against Southridge due to weather, fell to 0-2.

“Mater Dei is behind us now and (head) coach (Roger) Harriott preaches to us that every week is a new opportunity and tonight we saw this game as another opportunity to step forward and we came out on top with the W,” said St. Thomas running back Jaden Desir who scored three of his team’s six touchdowns while finishing just shy of 100 yards rushing on the night. “We kind of started out weak against Mater Dei and our motto at that point was to be a first half team and we came right out and jumped on them early tonight and were able to dictate things and do what we wanted the rest of the night.”

Desir scored twice on the ground and once on a 10-yard scoring toss from quarterback Mason Mallory as the Raiders scored three touchdowns in the second quarter to open up a 28-0 halftime lead.

Desir scored from a yard out on St. Thomas’ opening possession, a 70-yard, 8-play drive that took just four minutes and the rout was on.

Even after Julius Purcell-Telefoni picked off a Mallory pass in the end zone ending Aquinas’ second possession (the lone defensive highlight of the night for the Columbus defense), it mattered little.

Mallory, who finished his abbreviated evening that ended after St. Thomas’ first possession of the second half, led his team on a 75-yard, 10 play march on its next possession, finishing things off with a 10-yard scoring toss to Desir.

Thanks to a 38-yard run by Isaiah Calixte down to the Columbus 10 on the next possession, Mallory found Julius Jones for a 9-yard score and it was 21-0 with 4:12 left in the half.

The St. Thomas defense, which completely shut down the Columbus offense in the first half, holding the Explorers to 37 yards of offense and two first downs, then turned in another three-and-out giving its offense another short field.

With the key play being a 25-yard Mallory-to-Jones hook-up on third-and-14, Desir then bolted up the middle from 18 yards out just 19 seconds before halftime.

“We knew that we were going to face a formidable opponent tonight and (Columbus head coach Dave Dunn) Coach Dunn always has his team ready to play so getting off to a fast start was important,” Harriott said. “It’s something we’ve struggled with in the past. Theme this week was to focus on a fast start. We had a few too many penalties (the Raiders were flagged for holding seven times) that we’re going to have to clean up but the effort was there and there’s a lot to build on moving forward.”

A Morris Choice 2-yard scoring run with 5:19 left in the third quarter made it 35-0 and got the running clock moving as Harriott then started emptying the bench.

Only a “garbage time” 10-yard touchdown pass from Kingston Rust to Joseph Triana with 90 seconds left kept the Explorers, who lost to St. Thomas by nearly the exact same score a year ago (42-6) from getting shut out.

“We just came out and executed really well tonight,” said Mallory, who completed 11-of-13 passes for 177 yards and two touchdowns. “We had a lot of flags that we definitely want to clean up but we just had to come out and execute and that’s what we did as the score on the scoreboard reflects. The Mater Dei loss was definitely a tough one but we have a rule around here where we have 24 hours to dwell on a loss or be happy with a win. Then the next day after that, it’s back to business. That’s how it works around here.”

This story was originally published September 6, 2025 at 8:40 AM.