Pictured: Cardinal Mooney players at state championship celebration on December 19th. Photo by Mike Lang for the Sarasota Herald Tribune.

When Trinity Catholic kicker Cooper Badics lined up for a 49-yard field goal with a minute and 15 seconds left in the Florida High School Athletic Association Class 1S state championship game, he wasn’t supposed to hit it. The kick was the longest of Badics’ career and into the wind. But he did.

“Here’s the cool thing: not a single person on our sideline flinched,” says Jared Clark, Head Coach of Sarasota’s Cardinal Mooney Catholic High School Football team. Badics’ field goal left the Cougars down 27-24 with 1:10 left in the game. Senior quarterback Michael Valentino, the same player who had suffered four cracked ribs and a punctured lung in a game just 10 weeks before, marched on the field for the final drive of his high school career. It was a drive he’ll never forget. “Michael hits his first pass to Teddy Foster, we get 14 yards and go out of bounds. Then we threw the ball again and they rough the passer, so we got another 15 yards. We’re on Trinity’s 39-yard line,” says Clark. “We had a route we really liked, Michael read it perfectly, threw a perfect ball to Chris McCorkle and we scored a 39 yard touchdown.”

53 seconds later Cardinal Mooney was celebrating its first state championship in 51 years. The Cougars finished with a 12-2 record, the best in Clark’s four years as head coach, thanks in large part to a high powered offense that featured a diverse array of weapons including senior running back Carson Beach, who led the team with 27 total touchdowns. Clark was quick to point out the contributions of sophomore quarterback Devin Mignery, who took over when Valentino went down in week three and split playing time with the senior upon his return. “The truth of the matter is that we’re a very talented football team and everybody played a role and everybody believed in each other. When Michael went down, it was obviously something that affected us, but we all believed in Devin Mignery,” says Clark. “We only dropped one more game the rest of the season. Devin was prepared; he came in and did a great job. When Michael came back, they shared time with each other–the fact that they handled the situation so well and were so supportive of each other allowed the team to rally behind them and focus and play really well on Friday night.”

Pictured: Cardinal Mooney players at state championship celebration on December 19th. Photo by Mike Lang for the Sarasota Herald Tribune.