Belen Jesuit beats Tampa Jesuit for Class 5A state title
DELAND
Stefano Naos ran so fast and jumped so high, he barely regained his senses in time to realize he wasn’t allowed to jump the fence to celebrate with his fans in the middle of Saturday night’s Class 5A championship game.
But you could hardly blame Naos’ excitement.
He had just kicked in the clinching goal in Belen Jesuit’s 2-1 doubleovertime victory against Tampa Jesuit, which sealed his school’s second- state championship in boys’ soccer and first since 2016. Naos reacted to the goal by taking off his jersey and running to the sideline where the contingent of Wolverine fans cheered wildly.
“As soon as the play started, my teammate told me to get the rebound,” Naos said. “I was in the right place at the right time and it was a total team effort.”
Naos, a junior midfielder, wasn’t even in the spot he’d typically be during the run of play.
But when a long free kick by junior Alejandro Pereyra bounced hard off the hands of Jesuit goalkeeper Phillip Falcon III, Naos rushed in and made sure not to miss on the rebound.
Naos’ goal came with 7:16 left in the second overtime period. Naos also assisted on junior Matias Perinot’s game-tying goal in the 58th minute, which came on similar fashion after Perinot scored on a long rebound left by Falcon III.
“The last three or four games we’ve been down and we’ve been a second half team all season,”
Naos said. “We put the ball in the net at the right time.”
Tampa Jesuit (17-2-2) came up short in its bid for its eighth state title alltime. The game marked the first meeting between Florida’s two Jesuit schools in a state championship game. The only other postseason meeting in a team sport came in the 2003 baseball state semifinals.
Belen (18-3-1), which had five games postponed this season due to COVID-19 issues, closed the season on a 12-game winning streak.
“This is the culmination of a hard year with a lot of ups and downs,” Belen coach Tanger Mendonca said. “We missed five games when the whole team had to quarantine. But the unity among our players never wavered.
This gave us a sense that we had something pure and the way these kids sacrificed for each other … you knew we could do this.”