Coral Reef continues dominance of GMAC independent football conference
At Coral Reef, one of the best academic high schools in the state, there’s a growing football tradition.
And over the past four years, every new class of Barracudas wants to keep it going.
Coral Reef has become the dominant team in the Greater Miami Athletic Conference’s independent football conference.
The Barracudas repeated as conference champions and won it for the third time in the past four seasons on Wednesday night with a convincing, 26-8 win over Hialeah Gardens at Tropical Park.
“It all comes down to senior leadership so that when they leave, they’ve left a legacy and a standard and then the next group knows it has to keep it going,” Coral Reef coach Tim Wood said. “Most of these guys will never put on pads again in their lives so enjoy it.”
The Gladiators (4-7) finished a milestone season for their program as it played for the conference title for the first time after they won the conference’s North division. Hialeah Gardens lost its first four games and six of their first seven to open the season before beating Braddock and Hialeah-Miami Lakes and then winning a tiebreaker to qualify for the conference playoffs. The Gladiators then beat Braddock in the semifinals.
But after dueling to a scoreless tie in the first quarter, Coral Reef established dominance with its running game.
Sophomore running back Amari Germain led the Barracudas (9-2) with three rushing touchdowns and over 100 yards as Coral Reef scored all 26 of its points in the second and third quarters to take control of the game.
“He’s dynamite, he runs track, but he’s been a part of our football program the whole time,” Wood said. “He had a great game.”
About 15 players on this year’s roster for the Barracudas, who have been at least the runner-up in the conference each of the past four years, have taken home three championship rings.
One of them is senior quarterback Izaiah Roque, who opened the game by breaking loose for a 52-yard run on the Barracudas’ second drive. Roque would later connect on a 20-yard touchdown pass to Anthony Ziegler to open the scoring.
Unfortunately for Roque, he’d suffer a foot injury in the second quarter that sidelined him for the rest of the game. As Roque watched from the bench and cheered on his teammates, Germain led the offense, scoring a pair of 7-yard touchdowns to push Coral Reef’s lead to 19-0 in the third quarter.
Germain’s big run came late in the third when he broke loose for a 47-yard touchdown. The Gladiators broke the shutout in the final minute of the game on a 5-yard rushing touchdown followed by a two-point conversion.
“This started with the 2022 group and they’ve passed it down and passed it down and passed it down,” Wood said. “These guys have learned how to win.”
