St. Thomas makes FHSAA history with its 12th state championship
The entryway to the football facilities at St. Thomas Aquinas are a monument to the program’s storied history. The walls are plastered with photographs of the dozens of NFL players who passed through the school and each of the Raiders’ state championships are memorialized.
Now, they have 12 — more than anyone else in Florida High School Athletic Association history — and this newest one will get special treatment. Their 31-21 win against Orlando Edgewater in the Class 7A championship was the culmination a season unlike any other — a season disrupted at all turns by the COVID-19 pandemic and a season ending with history.
“We’re going to put pictures and brand it — like we have in our locker room — about this team and about this year. What our coaches did and for these kids to go through it day after day, for the staff and these players, I am so proud,” said athletic director George Smith, who coached St. Thomas Aquinas to their first seven championships,
As strange as the season was, it ended in a familiar place. The Raiders beat Edgewater for the 7A championship for the second year in a row, winning their fifth state title in seven seasons and ninth since 2007, and they did it in classic St. Thomas fashion. The Raiders got just enough offense and leaned on a defense loaded with four- and five-star recruits to hold off the Eagles in Tallahassee. For the second straight year, they rode star running back Anthony Hankerson and trusted their loaded defense to make timely plays.
Hankerson, now a junior, ran for 181 yards and three touchdowns on 26 carries, and St. Thomas Aquinas scored 17 points off five Eagle turnovers to win, despite being outgained by 161 yards and giving up 498.
“We a bend-but-don’tbreak defense. We have a lot of heart,” coach Roger Harriott said. “Things happen, but we have a strong belief system in our program, a lot of faith.”
It was a rematch of the 2019 championship and it played out in almost the same way. A year ago, Edgewater pushed the Raiders to the wire and St. Thomas only escaped with a five-point win on an interception in the end zone as time expired. The Eagles led at halftime in the 2019 game before the Raiders unleashed the read-option combo of Hankerson and star quarterback Zion Turner to rally and win a state title.
Edgewater had a chance to do the same this year. St. Thomas opened the game with a six-play, 56-yard drive and a 4-yard touchdown run by Hankerson for a 7-0 lead, but the Eagles otherwise held them scoreless until the final minutes of the second quarter. Edgewater tied the score on a touchdown run by star running back Cedric Baxter Jr. with 6:52 left in the half and then forced the Raiders to punt.
The Eagles started a potential go-ahead drive with a direct snap to star wide receiver Christian Leary, who signed a national letter of intent with Alabama onWednesday. Last season, he torched St. Thomas for nearly 150 yards and two touchdowns on the ground, and he picked up 18 on this play before he ran into Jaydon Hood on the left sideline.
The star middle linebacker, who signed withMichigan on Wednesday, pried the ball out of Leary’s hands to set up the Raiders at Edgewater’s 28-yard line. Two plays later, Hankerson made a cut, broke one tackle, and then kept his balance as another defender undercut him to sprawl into the end zone and give St. Thomas a 14-7 lead with 2:52 left in the half.
Five plays into their next drive, the Raiders defense did it again. Eagles quarterback Canaan Mobley overthrew Leary on a bubble screen and star cornerback Ja’Den McBurrows grabbed the ball with one hand, spun away from a tackler, and ran back 46 yards for a touchdown and a 21-7 lead.
“I had to go jump it,” said McBurrows, who also signed with Michigan on Wednesday. “We were only up by like seven and I needed to make a play. Defense always scores, so we had to score.”
Edgewater cut the lad to 21-14 before halftime and got another stop to start the third quarter, but Mobley threw another interception safety Jerrod Cameron Jr. and the Raiders turned it into three more points.
In the fourth quarter, they locked up the win with two more takeaways — both on Leary fumbles.
A fumbled snap by Leary at the Raiders’ 12 with 3:39 left was the final touch. Tyreak Sapp, who signed with the Florida Gators on Wednesday, pounced on the loose ball, then found a whiteboard on the Raiders’ sideline. He scribbled out a message.
“Ball game,” he wrote, “2020 champs.”
It’s hard to pick a favorite, but 2020 will always be special.
“It’s incredible,” Harriott said. “Without words. I’m so proud to be a part of this organization.”