SYRACUSE – All sorts of drama, though little of its own making, followed the Christian Brothers Academy football team to Sunday’s state Class AA championship game at the JMA Wireless Dome, though little of it had taken place on the field.
Now, though, with the entire focus on the gridiron ,a display of aerial brilliance, especially in the early stages, brought the Brothers back to the summit.
Scoring three times in the first 11 minutes and with Porter Matt and Darien Williams proving impossible to contain, CBA handled Carmel 28-14 and impressively claimed the third state title in program history.
Matt set a new career mark with 397 yards through the air, and most of it went to Williams, whose seven catches for 234 yards earned him game MVP honors.
“I’m so happy for the kids and their families,” said head coach Casey Brown, adding that his team took full advantage of the opportunities in front of them, whether on or off the field.
Dominant as CBA was in reaching the title game with a 13-0 record, it knew that ideal circumstances played a big role along the way. All of that was supposed to change against a Carmel side that won the state AA title in 2021.
Which only made what happened 22 seconds into the game so stunning – and decisive, as it turned out.
Stacked to the line of scrimmage to stop the Brothers’ ground attack, Carmel allowed Darien Williams to fly past the secondary. Matt found him in mid-stride for a 78-yard touchdown.
Matt said he saw the Rams selling out to stop the run and simply threw over them, and Williams echoed those sentiments.
“Nobody was around me, so I ran as fast as I can,” said Williams.
The deep passing didn’t end there, especially when CBA’s top back, Jamier Handford, went out with an injury on the second offensive series, not to return.
Matt found Williams for 21 yards and Daunte Bacheyie for 42 yards to set up his own five-yard scoring pass to Jason Brunson that made it 14-0 before the game was seven minutes old.
Syair Torrence joined the fun with an interception near midfield late in the first quarter. Then, on third-20, a short pass over the middle turned into something much bigger when Williams dashed down the right sideline, doing most of the work on a 65-yard touchdown.
All through this, CBA’s offensive line of Matt Capella, Shawn Edenfield, Khalil Cox, Matt Hawn and Cody Cloutier went from run blocking to pass protection and proved just as effective. Brown said it was simply a matter of “taking what the opponent gives us.”
Twice in the second quarter, the Brothers had the ball inside the 20 and didn’t come away with points due to a missed field goal and a stop by the Rams on fourth down in the waning seconds of the half.
In between these missed opportunities, Carmel got on the board with 2:06 left in the half when Tristan Cash Verlau found a hole on the left and went 80 yards for the TD, cutting CBA’s margin to 21-7, where it stood at the break.
But on its first possession of the third quarter, CBA drove from its own 24 to midfield and, from the Rams’ 48, Matt again found Williams in a dead sprint and the junior wideout dashed to the end zone for his third TD of the game.
Cash Verlau did go 72 yards for a TD early in the fourth quarter to pull Carmel within 28-14, but CBA countered with a drive that included two fourth-down conversions and burned up more than eight minutes before Everett Gilchrist’s 38-yard field goal sealed it.
