No. 8 St. Thomas Aquinas beats Plant to win Florida 7A high school football state title

Video: Plant vs. No. 8 St. Thomas Aquinas
View images by photographer Mark Camp of the 7A state championship game in Orlando.

It all worked out in the end.

After St. Thomas Aquinas (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.) had its national title hopes dashed in Game 1 with a controversial loss, the Raiders capped their season with the win where it really counted - the FHSAA Class 7A state championship game.

Behind five touchdown passes from Jake Allen, three to Mike Harley, the eighth-ranked Raiders, ranked No. 1 in the preseason, won its third-straight state title Friday night by beating previously unbeaten Plant (Tampa, Fla.), 45-6 at Camping World Stadium in Orlando.



In improving to 12-2 overall, St. Thomas Aquinas becomes just the second team in Florida prep history to win at least 10 state championships. Only Bolles (Jacksonville) has won more FHSAA football titles than the Raiders. Bolles' quest for title No. 12 came up 14 points short on Thursday against No. 25 Cocoa (Fla.) in the FHSAA 4A final.

The Raiders took control of this one early behind the passing of Florida-bound Allen, who threw touchdown passes to three different receivers en route to a 31-6 halftime lead.

See all the play-by-play from St. Thomas Aquinas vs. Plant

The 6-foot-3, 200-pound senior connected on a 24-yard pass to Harley with five minutes left in the first quarter and followed with a 26-yard TD strike to Joshua Palmer three minutes later to make it 14-0.

STA increased the lead to 21-0 midway through the second quarter on a 2-yard run by Mike Epstein, before Plant showed some life, driving the length of the field capped b a 2-yard TD run by Dane Frantzen.

Any chance of Plant gaining the momentum by halftime was quickly thwarted as Marco Salani hit a 19-yard field goal before Allen connected with Nigel White on a 22-yard touchdown pass to make it 31-6 at halftime. 



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Allen and Harley hooked up two more times in the third quarter on TD passes of 12 and 62 yards and the Raiders were well on their way.

St. Thomas Aquinas opened the season as the No. 1 team in the MaxPreps Xcellent 25 National Football Rankings presented by the Army National Guard, but lost a bizarre 27-23 decision to Booker T. Washington (Miami) on Aug. 26. The Raiders appeared to have won that opening game in the final seconds, but had a 22-yard pass completion called inches shy of the goal line, then had a goal line pass intercepted to end it.

Aquinas rebounded from the disappointment and pounded most of its remaining opponents, losing again only in triple overtime on the road to No. 1 Bishop Gorman (Las Vegas). In that game, the nation's top rated receiver Trevon Grimes went down with a torn ACL. No other team in America has better depth at the receiver position than St. Thomas Aquinas and that showed on Friday night.

Plant concluded its season at 13-1.