Head coach Scott Perry said it was “divine intervention.”
Whatever it was, it took perfect alignment of the football gods for what will go down as the Lake Mary Miracle.
After Lake Mary quarterback Noah Grubbs threw his third interception of the game Saturday night in the Class 7A state championship against Vero Beach, the Rams appeared to be doomed.
There was only 1:19 remaining and Vero led 27-19. It looked to be merely a victory-formation setting and game would be over. Vero Beach would win the state title and future FSU star Jordan Crutchfield, the thief of all three Grubbs’ picks, would likely be the MVP.
Lake Mary players douse coach Scott Perry with a bucket of ice water Saturday night after the Rams pulled off a last-second Hail Mary victory over Vero Beach to win the Class 7A state football championship 28-27. (Chris Hays/Orlando Sentinel)
In the pouring rain, what transpired played right into Lake Mary’s hands and put the Rams in the history books; the first-ever Lake Mary football state championship.
Lake Mary earns 7A football state title on Hail Mary touchdown
“At that time, I kinda was thinking, ‘Shoot, I wish I had my extra timeout. If I had my third one I would feel much better about this,’ ” Perry said. “But actually, maybe by us only having two timeouts left, they probably thought they could just knee it out, and without doing the math, they started to do that. If we had three, they probably would have tried to run the football and get a first down.”
The Vero decisions benefitted Lake Mary.
“There’s never been one play that’s ever won or lost a game. I learned that a long time ago,” Vero coach Lenny Jankowski told the TC Palm. “There’s a lot of things to go back and look at that could’ve changed the outcome. And there’s not anything I wouldn’t do right now to do that. But it didn’t happen, and we got to see if the sun will come up tomorrow.”
On first down at its own 39, Vero took a knee and after a Lake Mary timeout, there was 1:08 left. After a second kneel-down, and Lake Mary’s final timeout, there was still 1:04 remaining.
On third down at the 28, Vero again decided to take a knee, and the clock would run down until Vero took a delay-of-game penalty with 22 seconds left.
At that point, Jankowski could have opted to punt the ball away. Perhaps his decision to not do so was because Vero had averaged only 32 yards on two previous punts.
So the Indians snapped the ball from the 18-yard line and receiver Efrem White, an FSU signee, in wildcat formation, took the snap and ran backward, eventually being pushed out of the back of the end zone for an intentional safety with 12 seconds remaining.
“Obviously it all backfired on them and they weren’t able to get enough time off the clock,” Perry said. “On fourth down, they first sent out their punt team, and then they decided, no, and they pulled their punt team off the field.”
Vero now led just 27-21 and had to free-kick the ball from its 20. Janikowski decided, instead of a regular kickoff, to squib the ball on the ground and that too helped the Rams. Lake Mary’s Jahvon Robinson fielded the squib and returned it 23 yards to the Vero 42.
Interestingly, Robinson was not quite ready for the kick return. As the return team took the field, he did not have a helmet. His helmet had a visor on it, making it difficult to see in the rain, so he needed to borrow the helmet of teammate Brendan Mercado, grabbing it as he ran onto the field to set up for the return.
“When they took the safety, I was thinking, ‘Thanks for the two points. That makes it a little bit easier,’ ” Perry said. “We score a touchdown we win the game. Of course we still had to kick the extra point. I was thinking, ‘Why not just punt it?’
“Because if they punt it, the best we could do is tie it and go to overtime. So when they took the safety, I thought, ‘OK, we got a chance to win it here.”
Grubbs then set up for the play that will go down as the Lake Mary Miracle.
With 8 seconds left, the future Notre Dame quarterback launched a pass toward the end zone. A group of four Vero players jumped in unison to catch or ground the ball, and they tipped it backward to Lake Mary’s Barrett Schulz. He fielded the ball at the 4-yard line and pushed toward the goal line.
Aware he was not going to make it, teammate TJ Brundidge Jr., came up behind Schulz and took a handoff from him and carried the ball the rest of the way across the goal-line for the game-tying touchdown as time expired.
Schulz was supposed to be in the end zone, but due to being held up at the line of scrimmage because of press coverage by a Vero defender, he was late to arrive and was in the exact place he needed to be for the ricochet.
Lake Mary quarterback Noah Grubbs scrambles during the second half of the Rams 28-27 state championship victory over Vero Beach on Saturday night in Miami. (Chris Hays/Orlando Sentinel)
Lake Mary, however, still needed the extra point. Perry was worried about the wet ball. The rain came down in a steady drizzle for most of the second half, and heavily all of the fourth quarter. All of the live balls in play were water-logged.
Lake Mary snapper Chase Truesdell, holder Tanner Gierum and kicker Lucas Parker lined up for the winning point. Vero jumped off sides twice before Parker was finally able to put the ball through the uprights and the celebration ensued.
“We kept changing the cadence so we didn’t let them get a bead on it,” Perry said. “As they were running out there we were trying to find dry towels for our snapper and holder. That was my biggest worry, and to make sure we had a dry ball. Those balls were soaked and wet by the end of the game.”
Vero jumped off sides twice trying to time the snap cadence to jump in and block the kick. On the third attempt, Lake Mary decided to go with a silent cadence, giving Vero no warning of the snap and the kick was good.
It was a crazy series of events that needed to be perfectly aligned, but Lake Mary players had rallied in belief. They knew, as Vero tried to milk the final seconds off the clock, that they were going to get one last shot.
Offensive coordinator Adam Donnelly, the coach who laid in a hospital intensive care unit with severe COVID symptoms in 2020, calmly settled his players down, telling them all over and over, “Get ready. We got one more shot. We’re gonna get one more play.”
“When they called timeout, I went down to Adam and I yelled,” Perry said. “It was so loud in there with everybody screaming, but I said ‘You got one play. You better make it good,’ and, uh, he did. Adam called them together on the sidelines and kind of put it together.”
Lake Mary players executed to perfection, albeit with plenty of luck involved.
“It’s mind-blowing, right? I could have never imagined that,” Perry said of the way the game ended. “Yes, I thought we’d get one more play, but I didn’t think it would be for the win, but with the safety happening, I couldn’t believe it.”
Lake Mary quarterback Noah Grubbs poses with the MVP trophy after leading the Rams to a 28-27 state championship victory over Vero Beach on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025 in Miami. (Chris Hays/Orlando Sentinel)
Irony of all ironies, Brundidge, who scored the game-tying touchdown, was not even supposed to be in the game. Senior Donovan Little was supposed to lined up at slot receiver, but he was injured on a previous play.
“It was just shocking and disbelief that we were able to pull it out. Miracles happen, right? There are so many things that just went right,” Perry said. “So, TJ is in the game, Barrett gets press coverage so he gets off the line late and he gets down there late, but guess what? It’s just in time to catch that ricochet. … [the Vero players] all jumped up and didn’t catch it or knock it to the side or knock it down. They knocked it straight back right to Barrett.
“And then TJ, because he’s in the game, makes the play. I don’t know if anybody else would have had the football intuition to go make the play that TJ made.”
Chris Hays can be found on X.com @OS_ChrisHays.
