If you were a fan of the endings of the Michigan State vs. Michigan and Georgia Tech vs. Florida games the past few weeks, you're going to love this one from a high school championship game down in Florida.
It all went down last Thursday in a Florida Independent Football Conference title game at Palmer Trinity (FL) high's Brockway Field against Scheck Hillel HS (FL). The finish has already earned the nickname "The Miracle at Brockway".
To get a full grasp of the situation, allow me to set the scene. Following an interception with 38 seconds left, Hillel had possession of the ball and since Palmer Trinity only had two timeouts, they planned to kneel it, make Palmer use the timeouts, and head home with the win.
Except it didn't quite work out as planned.
After taking the first knee, Hillel's quarterback tossed the ball in the air in celebration, drawing a delay of game penalty - and more importantly stopping the clock - as the refs had to chase the ball down. On second and third down, Palmer Trinity was able to use their two remaining timeouts to force the punt with 15 seconds left on the clock. Palmer Trinity was down 12-15 at the time.
That's where things got interesting.
What ensued was almost a direct replica of how Michigan State beat Michigan a few weeks ago at the Big House. The similarities are absolutely uncanny.
Watching the snap bounce around in the backfield is almost painful to watch, then you see a Palmer Trinity player scoops it up and score to get the win 18-15.
“Oh my God. I was on the sideline just praying,” Palmer Trinity head coach Rudy Fernandez told the Miami Herald. “We needed a miracle, and we got one. All season long we’ve preached play to the last whistle, and [Thursday] it paid off. Something like this is huge for our program. We lost 13 players to injury and kept fighting through it. We had 11 freshmen out on that field, and I don’t know how many varsity football teams can say that.”
Read more about how the play unfolded here.
(H/T MaxPreps for the video)