They were trying to become the answer to a trivia question.
And for one half of action, it looked like Clearwater Central Catholic had a great shot at becoming the first school in Pinellas County history to win a state championship.
But after a scoreless first half, Trinity Christian unleashed on the Marauders, scoring 27 unanswered points in less than seven minutes of the third quarter. The Conquerors won the Class 3A state championship game, 34-7, for their second title in four seasons.
“At one point in the third quarter, I turned around (and asked) “are we still in the third quarter,” CCC Coach John Davis said. “Obviously that was a bad experience for us right there. It just seemed like everything that could go wrong for us, right there, did. And we just couldn’t overcome it.”
After both defenses bowed up in the first half, allowing a combined 138 yards off offense, the dominoes started falling for CCC on the second play of the third quarter. Trinity Christian’s Isaiah Ford sprinted 58 yards down the sideline for a touchdown.
Three plays later, CCC quarterback Jeff Smith’s third-down pass was intercepted , which set up a 14-yard touchdown pass from Jaquez Riles to Chris Barr.
The Marauders turned the ball over on downs on the ensuing possession and Trinity Catholic used the great field position to set up another score – a four-yard touchdown run by Ford. CCC’s Taylor Romerea blocked the extra point attempt, about the only thing going the Marauders way in the third quarter.
CCC turned the ball over again on the ensuing possession, which Deontai Williams scooped up and returned 63 yards for a touchdown. And just like that, Trinity Catholic was up 27-0. The Conquerors exploded for 143 yards of offense in the third quarter.
“We were excited in the first half. We were pumped up, feeding off of each other,” said linebacker/fullback Conner Dorris, who led CCC with a game-high 10 tackles and also had a half a sack. “I think we used up a lot of our energy and got a little tired. The third quarter was a lot rougher than the first half.
“We made a lot of mistakes and you can’t make mistakes when you’re playing a good team like this.”
CCC finally scored near the beginning of the fourth quarter when Smith engineered a nine-play, 77-yard scoring drive that was capped off by Dorris’ two-yard touchdown run. Smith accounted for 66 yards on that drive.
“I’m so proud of this group,” Davis said. “The outcome wasn’t what we wanted and we would have liked to have played better, but there’s no quit in this group. When you look out there and see Blake Gomez out there playing both ways, being a warrior, Conner Dorris, Justus Reed, Caanan Brown, all those guys were flying around out there.”
Dorris said the idea of becoming the first Pinellas County school to win a football title wasn’t far from their minds. But they’ll settle for making school history.
“Everyone thought about it in their sleep, that’s for sure,” Dorris said of possibly making history. “It was a long journey. We had some peaks and we had some mistakes too with losses, but I think those losses helped us get to this point.