St. Thomas Aquinas Routs Cypress Bay

It was a matchup projected to be between the two best high school football teams in Broward County and for the second straight year it turned out to be a rout as St. Thomas Aquinas defeated Cypress Bay 34-0 at Brian Piccolo Memorial Stadium in Fort Lauderdale. There was only one scoring play in the first half of the regional televised game. During the first quarter, the Raiders capitalized on a bad punt snap by Cypress Bay(1-1) and recovered the ball at the Lightning 12-yard line. On a fourth-and-two from the Lightning 4-yard line, Raiders running back Fred Coppet plowed through off-right tackle to complete the four-play drive and a 7-0 lead at 2:41. Gavin Sinclair had an Aquinas touchdown on a 75-yard punt return negated due to a penalty with 9:37 left in the half. The Raiders stacked up 21 points in the third quarter to put the game out of reach. Coppet had a six-yard run with 7:11 left on the first of three consecutive scoring drives. It was followed by a 60-yard touchdown run by running back Dami Ayoola on a two-play drive at 4:52. Ayoola then had a eight-yard run with 0:27 left to extend the lead to 28-0. St. Thomas Aquinas(2-0) kicker Nolan Bieck had field goals of 22 and 48 yards in the fourth quarter. With the Florida debut of Rocco Casullo, it was the first time since 1974 that another person outside of George Smith was the Raiders head coach at a home game.