With a 15-year-old QB and a 7-game winning streak, Champagnat goes for a three-peat
Champagnat Catholic trusted Ennio Yapoor to lead it back to a state championship and didn’t hesitate to ask him to go up against Miami’s biggest bad imaginable to start his freshman year in Hialeah.
“We threw him to the wolves,” coach Hector Clavijo said Monday, more than three months after he tossed Yapoor, then only 14, into the lineup against Northwestern for his first ever start. “I told him, ‘Listen: It’s not going to get any harder than this.’”
All told, the quarterback’s first start went alright. He was only 8 of 18 for 144 yards, but he didn’t get too rattled and start turning the ball over. He threw one touchdown, did not throw an interception, and also ran for 35 yards and a touchdown in a three-touchdown loss at Traz Powell Stadium.
It was, essentially, what Clavijo needed to see from his new starter. He knew this team was going to be different from a year ago — when Champagnat scored 42.2 points per game and won its six playoff games by an average of 41.2 points on its way to a second straight state title — and Yapoor would be good enough to lead a younger team and more methodical offense right back to Tallahassee.
So far, he has been proven right.
With a freshman starting quarterback and three more underclassmen starting on the offensive line, the Lions (10-2) are right back in the Class 2A championship and will face Jacksonville Trinity Christian Academy at 7 p.m. on Thursday at Gene Cox Stadium with a chance to complete a three-peat.
Champagnat is already one of only four teams in history to reach six straight Florida High School Athletic Association state championships and a win would make them only the fourth Miami-Dade County team to win three in a row.
Since losing two of their first five games to the Bulls and Gulliver Prep, the Lions have won seven in a row by an average of 20.7 points per game. They’re back playing something like their usual selves and just in time to take on another perennial state powerhouse: Trinity Christian Academy (9-4).
The Conquerors have won eight state titles — all since 2002 — and are trying to go back-to-back after beating Chaminade-Madonna in the Class 3A championship last year, ruining the Lions’ chances of securing their own four-peat.
“We’re younger, so it just took us a little bit of time to jell,” Clavijo said. “It’s almost like trying to figure out how to build confidence in the young guys.”
Its blowout loss to Gulliver on the first day of October — and, more specifically, the following week of practice — was when Champagnat’s young roster grew up. It “humbled” his team, Clavijo said, and he knew Champagnat would be fine when he saw how his players came back a few days later.
“When I saw them show up that following week,” Clavijo said, “I just saw a trajectory going up.”
Yapoor, now 15, isn’t the only reason Champagnat is back in the title game — wide receivers Benson Prospeer and Jaylin Terzado both have more than 500 yards, and Champagnat is allowing only 18.4 points per game during its winning streak — but a first-year, freshman starter could’ve been enough to torpedo Champagnat. Instead, he has been a strength.
In 12 games, the 6-foot, 200-pound quarterback has gone 208 of 300 with 24 touchdowns, and run for 480 yards and 10 more. The most important number, however, might be two.
In each of the last two weeks, Champagnat has been down early and Yapoor has rallied them to two comeback wins. The season-long growth has been noticeable.
“He’s just starting to see it,” Clavijo said. “He’s starting to see the game. The game’s slowing down for him.”
Still, “He’s a little kid, at the end of the day,” Clavijo said.
Yapoor hasn’t felt like an inexperienced player in a long time, though. He actually played in garbage time of a handful of playoff games last year as an eighth-grader and, again, his first game was against Northwestern, he battled adversity and his coaches trusted him the whole way.
As good as Trinity Christian is, nothing is quite like asking a 14-year-old to make his first high school start against the Bulls in Miami.
“It’s the first game of the year,” he said, beaming. “It’s exciting and nerve-wracking, but I feel like me and my team can get through it.”
This story was originally published December 8, 2021 at 5:17 PM.
