Chaminade-Madonna wants the title this time
HOLLYWOOD — Chaminade-Madonna wide receiver Xavier Williams remembers consoling the seniors on last year’s team after the Lions fell to Jacksonville Trinity Christian in the state championship game.
“You were going up to your seniors, crying with them because it’s their last game,” Williams said. “You’ve got another year, so you can’t boo-hoo forever.”
Williams, now a senior and an Alabama commit, and fellow senior running back Shaun Shivers, an Auburn commit, will do everything in their power to avoid being the ones that the underclassmen have to comfort on Saturday after Chaminade gets its shot at redemption in a 10 a.m. kickoff against Oxbridge Academy in the Class 3A state final at Orlando’s Camping World Stadium.
Players have used last year’s title-game defeat as motivation through various symbols. Williams wakes up to the second-place silver medal hanging over his head every morning. Shivers sees that runner-up trophy and vows not to bring back another one this time around.
“It has just been my motivation to go back this year and get it,” said Shivers, who enters with 2,025 rushing yards on his senior season. “I just know this is my last game, so I want to go out with a bang.”
Senior lineman Davoan Hawkins, a Kentucky commit, says it’s a promise players have made to each other to finish the job.
“We went through that. We’re not trying to go through that again. We promised our brothers something and failed at it. I don’t like to break promises,” said Hawkins, who plans to play virtually every snap on both sides of the ball. “This year, we’re going to do it.”
For the Lions (10-2), there’s a difference in mentality going into this year’s installment.
“Last year, we were happy just to be going. This year, we have to win,” said Chaminade coach Dameon Jones.
There’s a mantra Jones introduced to the team at the start of the season that took off among players, and Jones likes what they’ve done with it.
“I started a trend and they’re finishing it with ‘Unfinished Business.’ They took hold of that, and they’re doing what they need to do. They’ve been locked in ... and I see a focus I haven’t seen all year.”
Chaminade comes in on a nine-game win streak. The Lions started 1-2 with tough losses at Miami Central and American Heritage by a combined 52 points that Jones felt got the team battle-tested for this moment. The Lions’ point differential since has been 418-42, including regular-season victories over Miami Booker T. Washington and University School.
In three playoff games against American HeritageDelray, Benjamin and Clearwater Central Catholic, Chaminade has won by a combined score of 143-3.
Last season, the Lions knocked off Oxbridge in a regional final en route to the title game.
Saturday will mark the first time Broward and Palm Beach County teams match up in a state championship game since 2005 when Palm Beach Gardens beat Deerfield Beach in Miami Gardens.