Miami Central rallies to beat Southridge and secure GMAC football title
Who recovered the fumble?
When the game was over, it perhaps depended on who you talked to.
In the end, a controversial call in the final minute went the way of Miami Central and proved to be the difference as the Rockets rallied from a 20-0 second-quarter deficit to beat Miami Southridge 34-28 in the Greater Miami Athletic Conference championship game Saturday night at Traz Powell Stadium.
The game-winning play came with 56 seconds left when Central quarterback Anthony McQueen, with his team trailing by one point, plowed into the end zone from a yard out for the game-winning points.
The score came two plays after Southridge thought they had won the game.
McQueen, from the Spartans 2-yard line, lost the ball on a bad exchange with his center. When everybody unpiled, Southridge defensive lineman Martell Shannon emerged with the ball and the Spartans began to run off the field celebrating.
The Rockets (6-1) had no timeouts and the Spartans (8-1) would’ve been able to run out the clock. But the celebration was premature. Much to their shock, the Central offense lined up to run another play as Spartan defenders scrambled to get back to the line of scrimmage for the next play.
“I lost the ball, but I picked it back up,” said McQueen. “They thought the play was over but me, I didn’t hear a whistle, I just battled with somebody else with the ball.”
When approached by the Herald after the game, head referee James Mitchell explained that both players were battling for possession of the ball on the bottom of the pile and that when there is dual possession, it goes to the offense.
“I had the ball for like three seconds,” said Shannon as he dejectedly trudged off to the buses. “As soon as he fumbled I was on the ball. I laid on it and then the ref blew the whistle, I got up started to run off and he said the quarterback had the ball. I don’t get it, I thought I had won the game for my team.”
Controversial finish aside, a game that appeared might be a lopsided affair early on eventually emerged into an instant classic.
Southridge quarterback and USF commit James Perrone led his team on three consecutive touchdown drives on their opening three possessions. He scored from 4 yards out to cap an opening 63-yard drive before tossing a 23-yard score to Trae Proctor on the team’s second possession to conclude a 55-yard, 10 play drive.
On Southridge’s third possession, Perrone faced a fourth-and-three at the Central 13 when he avoided an all-out blitz and skirted around the right side and sprinted to the end zone. It was 20-0 with 8:38 left in the second quarter.
“We’ve got a slogan around here, don’t panic no matter how bad things get,” Central coach Derrick Gibson said. “We keep fighting no matter what happens and you saw that from our kids out there tonight. A great job of everybody keeping their poise and staying focused.”
McQueen, who would finish his big night with 228 passing yards on 14-of-26 passing, then started to lead the way back for his team in which the Rockets would score 27 unanswered points.
Thanks to a 57-yard run by Jaden Ford, he engineered a quick 73-yard scoring drive capping it off with a 9-yard scoring toss to Brandon Kinsey. Next up came a 94-yard drive just before halftime with a 56-yard strike on third-and-seven from his own 9 to Kareem Brown being the big play. He then found Brown wide open for a 24-yard touchdown with 30 seconds left and the Rockets were within seven, 20-13 at the break.
That momentum carried over into the third quarter as Central dominated on both sides of the ball. The defense stifled Perrone (who finished his night 19-of-32 for 187 yards) while the offense kept rolling. McQueen scored from a yard out to cap off a 56-yard 10-play drive midway through the third quarter tying the game at 20 and then gave his team the lead when he fired a perfect deep ball to a streaking Brian McKoy for a 52-yard score with 9:40 left to make it 27-20.
But when McQueen lost a fumble at the Ridge 45 with 6:59 left, Perrone still had some magic left.
He marched the Spartans 55 yards in 10 plays with running back Travis Gamble scoring from four yards out with 3:52 left. Southridge coach Pierre Senatus then rolled the dice and went for two. The gamble paid off when Perrone avoided two blitzing Central defenders, wheeled to his right and found Jahkari Johnson wide open for the two-pointer.
To avoid kicking the ball to Ford, (who had killed the Spartans all night with 137 yards rushing on 14 carries and three different long kickoff returns), Southridge tried squibbing the ensuing kickoff. But the ball hit one of the Rocket players on the front line, who quickly fell on it at the Southridge 47, giving McQueen and his offense a short field for the game-winning drive.
“As a quarterback for my team, my guys depend on me to win these games for them,” McQueen said. “But what they don’t know is that I need them as much as they need me so when we were down so much early, I knew I had to keep cool and just go out there and make plays.”