High school football: Champagnat Catholic rallies past FBA in Class 2A state semifinal

First Baptist coach Billy Sparacio wasn't into moral victories. Not in a 2A state semifinal. And not against a team that beat his 42-0 last season.

Friday night, First Baptist led 8-0 and had a chance to go up two touchdowns against four-time state champion Hialeah Champagnat Catholic in the second quarter. But Champagnat, also nicknamed the Lions, made the fourth-and-goal stop from its 6, and FBA didn't score again in a 27-8 loss in the Lions Den.

"Looking back, these are games, high school football, college football, you watch them every Friday and Saturday, they're high emotion," Sparacio said. "When you get somebody on the ropes like that, and we had an opportunity on the 6-yard line and we just fell short, and nobody's fault. It was a combination of things that we didn't execute or maybe I called the wrong play, whatever it was, we just didn't get it done.

"We could go up 16-0 possibly. I think we had our chances and we've got to capitalize. We talked about that all week. You can't let them hang around and we did that, and it came back to bite us."

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Champagnat definitely chomped down after that, scoring 27 straight points, and while not completely shutting down FBA, minimizing its opportunities.

"We just had to fight," Champagnat coach Hector Clavijo said. "I knew they weren't going to come out light. I tell them 'We get everybody's best game.' That's what it's all about. There's a lot of pressure on these kids. They're always so resilient. They come back and bounce back. No matter what happens, whether we're down, whether we're up, you've got to stay focused, you've got to stay with it."

Champagnat (10-2) won in Collier County for the third time this season. The Lions beat Barron Collier, 42-23, at Paradise Coast Sports Complex, and at Lely, 50-22. They will face Jacksonville Trinity Christian, which beat Orlando Christian Prep 29-21 on Friday, in the 2A state title game in Tallahassee at 7 p.m. Thursday.

After forcing another FBA turnover on downs with 51 seconds left in the first half, Champagnat took over at its 37, and took the lead for good after a 51-yard pass from freshman quarterback Ennio Yapoor to Shayon Walton to the FBA 1. Yapoor bulled in on the next play for a 14-8 lead with 26 seconds remaining.

"It was huge. It was huge," Clavijo said of the late score. "That brought us back to, we had a similar situation last year against Seffner, a similar deal. We came back, scored before the half, make them go into halftime thinking. We did that, and I think we got some momentum. We got going. We got warmed up.

"Maybe the trip's too long to Naples. We've got to shorten it up a little bit. But it was awesome, a great experience, a great crowd — on both sides."

FBA (10-2) went 3-and-out to start the third quarter, and Yapoor scored again from the 1 to cap an 11-play, 85-yard drive for a 21-8 lead. Jordan Jones added a 3-yard TD run late in the third.

The 5-foot-11, 215-pound Yapoor completed 16-of-19 passes for 200 yards and a touchdown and ran for two more. Many of his passes were bubble screens, quick outs or swing passes, but his 51-yarder to Walton was a strike, and he had an 18-yard touchdown pass to Benson Prosper to get Champagnat on the board with 3:31 left in the first half.

FBA moved the ball, especially in the first half.

But the Lions fumbled after a 21-yard pass play to the Champagnat 25, Keller's pass to Olsen Patt Henry was knocked out of Henry's hands by a pair of Lions on fourth-and-goal from the 6, and Keller was stopped a yard short on fourth-and-2 at the Champagnat 37. The latter set up the go-ahead score for the Lions just before the half.

After going 11 of 16 for 206 yards and a 24-yard touchdown pass to Henry in the first half, Keller was just 1 of 2 before being pulled. He was sacked on back-to-back plays to end the Lions' second possession of the second half and force a punt.

Champagnat caught a pair of breaks on the series it scored to go up 21-8 in the third.

Yapoor fumbled and it was recovered by FBA's Michael Votta at the FBA 39. But FBA was called for illegal substitution on the play. An errant snap on the next play was recovered by Champagnat after a 21-yard loss, but FBA was called for a personal foul after the play, giving Champagnat a first down at the FBA 29. The Lions scored four plays later.

Sparacio tried freshman Ethan Crossan at quarterback as well as Mellien, who had played quarterback almost exclusively the previous two years, and, again, FBA was able to move the ball, but not get in the end zone.

Crossan's pass to Henry on fourth down from the Champagnat 17 into the end zone was just long with 7:32 left, and that pretty much eliminated any hopes of a comeback.

A season that included an early trip to Massachusetts to play a game, then a stayover to watch a pair of former FBA stars play against one another in a Colgate-Boston College game, and later included a visit with the oldest living Heisman Trophy winner, came to an end.

"We'll learn from this," Sparacio said. "We'll get better. We'll improve. I can't say enough about our seniors. They're great kids. I wish they could've won the big one.

"It's great to be here, but it's not enough. We lost. I'm super proud of our kids, and they worked hard all season, and I love our coaching staff, they work hard. But we didn't come here to play a good first half and lose the game. We came here to win, and to win the state championship. That's our goal. That's our goal every year. It's not going to change, so we've got to figure out how to get past Champagnat, and improve and get better, and we'll do our best to do that."

Greg Hardwig is a sports reporter for the Naples Daily News and The News-Press. Follow him on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter: @NDN_Ghardwig, email him at ghardwig@naplesnews.com. Support local journalism with this special subscription offer at https://cm.naplesnews.com/specialoffer/

This article originally appeared on Naples Daily News: Champagnat Catholic rallies past FBA in Class 2A football state semifinal