With 1:23 left in Hollywood, Florida, Chaminade-Madonna lined up a field goal to win it, and everything St. Thomas Aquinas has been building sat on the next few seconds: an unbeaten season, and a winning streak one stop short of 20.
Wyatt Smith blocked the kick.
That's how No. 4 St. Thomas Aquinas left No. 33 Chaminade-Madonna's place with a 21-20 win on Friday night, and it's the closest the streak has come to dying in a long while.
The hole came first. What follows is MaxPreps' account of the night. Chaminade-Madonna quarterback Brady Quinn spent a half making the rankings look upside down. He ran for two touchdowns before the break, sent the Raiders to the locker room down 14-7, then struck again early in the third, a touchdown throw to Tromon Isaac Jr. that made it 20-7 with 8:37 left in the period.
Thirteen down, on the road, against a quarterback who had accounted for every touchdown his team had. Streaks this long are supposed to end on nights shaped exactly like that one.
The climb back was quiet. No panic, just two touchdowns the rest of the way. The second was the one Fort Lauderdale will remember: quarterback Cody Conness flipped a screen to Ryan Mathis with 10:45 to play, Mathis took it the distance, and the Raiders led 21-20.
Chaminade-Madonna got its chance anyway. The Lions moved into range late and lined up the kick that could have won it. Smith ended the night right there.
What the one-point escape tells you. On paper this was Florida's best Friday matchup, No. 4 against No. 33, and it outplayed even that billing. Aquinas is 6-0, the winning streak now sits at 20, and the last loss on the books is August of 2025. Chaminade-Madonna falls to 4-2, and a team that pushes the fourth-ranked team in the country to a blocked kick inside the final 90 seconds deserves to be taken as seriously as it played.
The Raiders head home with the record clean and a reminder in the bag, the kind a top-five team rarely gets in early October.
Twenty in a row now. Number 20 needed somebody to reach higher than a kick.
