Miami Central, Lincoln upset Dr. Phillips, Armwood in Florida football finals

ORLANDO, Fla. — A loud and much-deserved roar erupted among the Central (Miami) fans when Devonta Freeman's name was announced over the public address system during the Class 6A championship game medals ceremony Saturday night at the Florida Citrus Bowl.

Freeman rushed for 308 yards and scored three touchdowns to lead Miami Central to a 42-27 victory over nationally ranked Dr. Phillips (Orlando, Fla.) in front of an announced paid attendance of 10,078 that included Florida State head coach Jimbo Fisher. Freeman has made a verbal commitment to FSU, and he gave Fisher plenty of reasons to smile.

Freeman's performance — he also had 31 yards receiving to give him 339 all-purpose yards — came eight days after he rushed for 354 yards and three touchdowns in the Rockets' 30-27 win against Cypress Bay in the 6A semifinals. His 4-yard touchdown run with 38 seconds remaining put an exclamation point on Central's first state title and handed Dr. Phillips (14-1), ranked No. 15 in the MaxPreps Xcellent 25, its first loss this season.

"My offensive line made it possible," said Freeman, who was Miami-Dade County's leading rusher this season and had more than 1,000 yards rushing in the Rockets' five playoff games. "The fourth quarter, they got stronger and they made me better."

Indeed, Miami Central's play in the trenches — on both sides of the ball — was dominating. The Rockets (14-1) had 513 yards total offense and their defense limited Dr. Phillips' high-octane offense to 238 yards. Demetrius Hart, Dr. Phillips' highly touted running back who scored a single-season state record 50 touchdowns this season, was limited to 39 yards rushing and never reached the end zone Saturday night. His longest run from scrimmage was 7 yards.

This night, instead, belonged to Freeman and the Rockets.

"I always knew this kid was going to be special," Miami Central coach Telly Lockette said of Freeman.

Central senior quarterback Rakeem Cato also played a key role in the victory, completing 17 of 25 passes for 196 yards and three touchdowns, one of them to Freeman just before the end of the first half that pulled Central to within three points at halftime after Dr. Phillips had raced to a 17-0 lead.

"I had to calm them down, and I told them we've been down by 18 points before and came back," Lockette said of the 17-point deficit the Rockets faced early in the second quarter. "My kids showed the heart of a champion. Both teams should be commended. I'm just so happy for the fans and the community."

Cato obviously listened to his coach. He threw an interception that was returned for a touchdown midway through the first quarter that put Central in a 14-0 hole, but was steady behind center the remainder of the game.

"I just kept my poise," Cato said. "Devonta's a horse. The offensive line and him were amazing. Three years I've been waiting for this. I love this team."

Dr. Phillips looked like it might make the game a rout when the Panthers jumped to a 17-0 lead on a 29-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Nick Patti to wideout Chris Gallon, a 61-yard interception return for a touchdown by Ryan Luckett and a 22-yard field goal by Shawn Moffitt.

But Freeman and the Rockets stormed back from the early deficit with a 21-point second quarter. D'andre Randle jump-started the rally when he hauled in a 30-yard touchdown pass from Cato. Charles Gaines Jr.'s 18-yard interception return for a touchdown with 7:59 remaining in the first half narrowed Dr. Phillips' lead to 17-14.

Patti and Gallon hooked up again late in the second quarter on a 50-yard touchdown pass play to take a 24-14 lead, but Central answered with a touchdown when Freeman caught a pass from Cato in the flat and weaved his way 18 yards for the score with 18 seconds remaining in the first half to make it 24-21 at halftime. Freeman had 112 yards rushing in the first half, the bulk of it coming in the Rockets' explosive second quarter.

Central grabbed its first lead of the game when Cato connected with Tommy Shuler for a 13-yard touchdown pass to give the Rockets a 28-24 lead with 4:06 left in the third quarter. A 26-yard field goal by Moffitt just before the end of the third quarter narrowed Central's lead to 28-27, but Freeman put his signature on his MVP performance with two touchdown runs in the fourth quarter, most of which was played under a dense fog that suddenly engulfed the Citrus Bowl.

Dr. Phillips was the second nationally ranked team to lose Saturday at the Citrus Bowl.

LINCOLN STUNS NO. 6 ARMWOOD 17-14
Carlos Gaston and his Lincoln (Tallahassee, Fla.) teammates ignored all the week-long chatter about how nationally ranked Armwood (Seffner, Fla.) was going to win the Class 4A state title. Gaston also ignored the drama of a pressure-packed kick with the game and state championship on the line Saturday afternoon at the Florida Citrus Bowl.

Gaston booted a 37-yard field goal with 4 seconds remaining to give Lincoln (11-4) a 17-14 upset victory over Armwood (14-1) and hand the Trojans their first state championship since 2001 and third in the program's history. Gaston's game-winning kick atoned for a 45-yard attempt that he missed wide left late in the first half. Gaston said after the game that his teammates gave him encouragement during halftime.

"They talked to me and told me to keep my head up, that they'd need me later," said Gaston, who had made 7 of 11 field goal attempts before the championship game, but none with as much at stake as the game-winner he drilled through the middle of the uprights Saturday on a cool, wet day. "I was just focusing on my fundamentals. I knew I could make it. It feels fantastic. We didn't care that they were nationally ranked and all that."

The outcome was a reversal of Armwood's dramatic 22-20 win last week against then-nationally ranked Dwyer (Palm Beach Gardens) when the Hawks, ranked No. 6 in the MaxPreps Xcellent 25, won that semifinal matchup on a field goal as time expired.

Following Gaston's kick, Armwood's Alvin Bailey made a fair catch of the ensuing kickoff at the 5-yard line to set up a final razzle-dazzle play that fizzled at the Armwood 31 and included a completed pass, three laterals and a couple of fumbles before Lincoln stopped the play with no time remaining. That sparked a wild celebration on the Lincoln sideline as the Trojans tossed their helmets in the air and crazily ran onto the field as Armwood players fell to the turf in stunned disbelief.

"They're going to remember this for a lifetime," Lincoln coach Yusuf Shakir, a 1996 Lincoln grad, said of his players, who overcame a 3-4 start this season en route to claiming the Class 4A championship trophy. "This is unbelievable. The kids knew nobody expected us to win. Some people were saying we were going to get shut out. We didn't let the outside stuff affect us. This just makes me feel so great. This is for all the former coaches and players and everyone at Lincoln."

Armwood, which won back-to-back state titles in 2003-04, had more than twice as many total yards (268-121) as Lincoln, but special teams played a key role in the Trojans pulling off the upset. Lincoln, which finished with only four yards net rushing, scored the game's first touchdown when Javoris Allen scooped up a blocked field goal attempt by Armwood and sprinted 45 yards for a touchdown to give the Trojans a 7-0 lead five minutes into the second quarter.

Armwood answered that score with a 60-yard scoring drive, culminated by a 4-yard touchdown run by Matt Jones to tie the game at halftime. Jones gave Armwood its first lead of the game when he scored on a 79-yard run early in the third quarter, but Lincoln tied the game again on a 1-yard touchdown run by Ronald Butler with 9:13 remaining in the contest to set the stage for the game-winning drive that was kept alive by a roughing the punter penalty against Armwood.

Jones rushed for a game-high 154 yards on 19 carries and also caught three passes for 51 yards. He said after the game that the emotional, drama-packed win against Dwyer last week did not cause the Hawks to be flat for the championship game.

"We didn't take (Lincoln) lightly. We knew they came to play," said Jones, a 6-foot-3, 210-pound junior who will be one of the state's top-rated recruits next season.

Armwood coach Sean Callahan said, however, that the talk about how last week's game against Dwyer was viewed by many observers as the state championship game might have affected his team mentally in their preparation.

"That was a concern of mine, but you can't use that as an excuse," Callahan said. "We never cashed in on our opportunities. They blocked a field goal and cashed in on it."