South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
Handling business
Harris, Raiders defense find footing after early deficit, cruise by host Panthers
FORT LAUDERDALE — Senior quarterback Champ Harris completed 8 of 17 passes for 131 yards and two touchdowns to lift St. Thomas Aquinas to a 24-6 District 11-3M win over Dillard on Friday night at Otis Gray Jr. Memorial Stadium.
Harris, who was just 2 of 6 in the first half for 20 yards, rallied the Raiders to their 19th consecutive win, dating back to last season when they won their third straight Class 7A state championship.
“I felt I had a good performance and I thought we had a great team win,” Harris said. “I felt like we handled business in all areas.”
St. Thomas Aquinas (6-0), who has been the country’s No. 5-ranked team since the beginning of the year, limited the Panthers to just 137 yards for the game.
St. Thomas Aquinas coach Roger Harriott was pleased with the outcome.
“Our defense flies around,” Harriott said. “They win the point of attack early and often and they don’t let up. We have a very stingy special teams and defensive attack.”
“This is a local historic game,” he added. “It is always going to be an emotional type of environment. I thought Coach [Tyler] Tate did a good job of getting his guys ready. We didn’t execute exactly how we planned, but some of that was forced by their tenacious play.”
Dillard (2-3) marched 46 yards in 10 plays to take a 6-0 lead with
4:26 remaining in the first quarter as junior quarterback Armani Norcius capped the Panthers’ opening drive of the game with a 17-yard scoring toss to senior running back Chris Johnson.
Norcius was 4 for 4 on the drive for 37 yards and a score. Johnson set up the drive with a
24-yard punt return which gave the Panthers possession in Raiders’ territory.
St. Thomas Aquinas cut the deficit in half on a 25-yard field goal by sophomore kicker Nicholas Romero with one minute left in the first quarter. Senior running back Gemari Sands got the Raiders into field goal position with three straight runs for 59 yards to start the drive.
Harris found senior wideout
Isaiah Hodge on a 12-yard scoring toss as St. Thomas Aquinas seized the lead for good at 10-6 with 6:12 left in the first half.
Dillard appeared to have come up with a big stop with two minutes left in the first half when senior safety Jerry Johnson came up with a loose ball at the Panthers’ 12-yard line.
After conferring, the officials ruled that Harris had attempted a pass on a forward pitch to junior running back Jordan Lyle which gave the ball back to the Raiders. An unsportsmanlike penalty moved the ball to the Dillard 4 and two plays later Lyle scored on a 2-yard run to push the advantage to 17-6.
St. Thomas Aquinas gashed the Panthers in the first half as they rushed for 178 yards. They limited Dillard to just 25 yards rushing and 45 yards passing in the first two quarters. The Raiders finished the game with 231 yards rushing.
“We wanted to show we were more dominant,” Harris said. “That was our goal coming in this week. We still threw the ball some, but we wanted to show these guys we were dominant up front…I got their back, and they got mine. Everybody did their job. Everybody executed.”
Harris made it 24-6 when he found a diving junior wide receiver Chance Robinson for a
33-yard score with 7:58 remaining in the game. The Raiders drove
78 yards in six plays as Harris completed four straight passes for
84 yards, with the final three going to Robinson covering 81 yards.
Dillard coach Tyler Tate said his team learned a lot in the past four games, a gauntlet of opponents that were ranked sixth (Chaminade-Madonna), fourth (Miami Central) and fifth (St. Thomas Aquinas) in the country by MaxPreps.
“I love these kinds of games,” Tate said. “I put a schedule together to prepare our team for the postseason. Not only do the players learn, but the coaches learn as well. You learn a lot from three tough losses than you do three easy wins.”
The Raiders lead the all-time series, 22-8, including wins in
16 of the past 17 games. The lone Panthers victory came in 2013 when they held on for a 24-23 victory.