THE VILLAGES, FLORIDA – On Saturday, November 16, 2024 the Jupiter Christian Eagles beat the St. Joseph Academy Flashes to win the state championship. The final score of the game was 35-37 with both teams having the lead at certain points of the game.
To prepare for the game, the team drove to Orlando the day before. They stopped at a hotel and had two players per room. The phones were taken at 10:00 to make sure the players were not up late and had enough sleep for the game. Everybody had to be up by 8:15 to eat breakfast and then head to the stadium. The team arrived around 11:00 and headed to the locker room to get set up. Once everybody was good, they headed out to the field for warm ups. The team was getting mentally and physically prepared for the game.
Once the game finally started the Flashes started with the ball and drove down the field to score. Once the Eagles got the ball they drove down the field but had to punt. The Flashes got the ball back but did not do much with it and punted it right back. This time the Eagles scored with Shea McMillan throwing a touchdown pass to Cayden Alula. When the Flashes got the ball back they once again punted and the Eagles had the same result except it was Gideon Douglas with an 85-yard rushing touchdown. The momentum was starting to carry for the Eagles until they kicked it off to the Flashes and they ran it out and scored.
This lost momentum caused the Eagles to be down 14-28 at halftime. They knew something needed to change though and they did not make it all the way to states just to lose. Coming out of the half, the Eagles scored first and drew the score up to 21-28. In the 4th quarter Shea threw another touchdown to Cayden. Instead of going for the tie, they took the lead by going for two. The score was 28-29 with the Eagles winning. After this, the Eagles forced a fumble, and from there on, they closed out the game with the final score being 35-37.
The game was closer than it needed to be though because with under two minutes left it was 28-37 and St. Joseph got an 80-yard touchdown nobody was expecting. After this the Eagles recovered an onside kick to finalize the game.
