Fort Lauderdale @ Archbishop McCarthy
WEEK 3 | 2023 SEASON
September 7, 2023
by Josh Zedner
Southwest Ranches, Fla. | “Mavs Hand Flying L to Fort Lauderdale”
Florida Man Sports is back with a Week 3 showdown between two rising schools in the South Florida high school football ranks. Tonight’s showdown featured a matchup between the Fort Lauderdale Flying L’s and the Archbishop McCarthy Mavericks. Both teams came into this game undefeated (2-0) so the stakes were high.
The highlights came early and often in this battle as the L’s had a huge opening kick-return by 2026 DB and track star Kevin Peoples to get the ball rolling for his team. The drive eventually led a relentless push by 2026 QB Jayden Chico to bully his way into the endzone to kick off the L’s efforts to get a W.
Chico is an absolute gamer and his steady efforts to push the ball down the field through his deep ball and his strong rushing ability put the L’s up quickly 12-0 after he threw a perfect tight window toss on a slant to 2024 WR/DE Jah’Uny Thomas. Chico was doing whatever it took to put on for 1600 get his squad the win.
The Mavs didn’t sit down though, as they punched back on the following drive with multiple gash and sneaky runs by 2027 RB Damien Grant, who got the crowd in a frenzy, scoring the first Archbishop McCarthy touchdown in the middle of the 2nd quarter. Assisting on this drive were multiple careless penalties by the L’s.
Chico threw another haymaker at the Mavs and led another impressive drive down the field, culminating in a short TD catch and run by 2026 ATH Jaboree Riggins. Chico then threw another dot to Thomas (that essentially mimicked his earlier touchdown to him) for a 2-point conversion, pushing Fort Lauderdale ahead to a 20-7 lead.
But once again, the Mavs strong rushing attack showed up and 2026 DB/RB Jeremiah Alexandre ran up the gut for a long touchdown that ignited the McCarthy crowd and bench, and took us to a 20-14 halftime score in favor of the L’s.
Fresh out of the intermission, the Mavs stomped out the stables. Have to give some credit to 2026 QB Robert Kerns, who was an excellent game manager, controlling the pace of the offense and placing his weapons in the right place to succeed. Although he struggled with his accuracy on some deep and intermediate throws, Kerns showed off his elusiveness and gritty running ability on scrambles and QB-designed runs, and delivered short accurate passes to 2025 WR Tristen Hill throughout the night. Kerns has a boatload of potential as long as he continues to develop alongside his young McCarthy teammates.
The freshman Grant was a star all night for the Mavericks, delivering again right out of the half with a fantastic run in which he broke many arm tackles and rumbled his way into the end-zone to give the Mavs their first lead of the night at 21-20. Things just stalled for the L’s after the half. Chico was plagued by many dropped passes, a lack of a pure rushing attack, and an overall good defensive performance by the Mavs to hold the L’s offense. A couple of those solid Maverick defenders included 2025 LB Justin St-Ange and 2025 S John Davis, who absolutely cracked an L’s receiver in the 3rd quarter.
In the 4th quarter, the Mavs were looking to put the game away through rushes by Kerns and Grant, but a dropped pass on 4th and Goal saved the L’s from prematurely being handed an L. Chico then drove his guys down the field once again throwing great intermediate balls to 2026 ATH Kaidon McGill and 2024 TE Luke Hamil, but then threw an interception to 2026 S Joseph Shapiro that nearly put the game away in the middle of the 4th. (To be fair, the interception looked like it hit the ground before it bounced up out of his receiver’s hands and ended up with Shapiro, but the ruling stood.)
Fort Lauderdale forced a quick 3-and-out for their final licks at a victory. Drops continued to plague Chico on his last stand. The L’s drove the ball about halfway down the field before Chico delivered a pass that sailed over his receivers head and put the game away at 21-20.
As we wrap things up, the McCarthy Mavericks have now moved to a fantastic 3-0 start to begin the year. This program has an extremely bright future, regardless of the record they have at the end of this season. As a youthful team, with headliners such as Kerns and Grant, they will surely be fun to watch as the years go by. For the Fort Lauderdale Flying L’s, the L was dealt. It is a deflating loss for them after the extremely promising first half by Chico and the offense. The defense did all it could to keep them hanging around in the second half, but the disheartening amount of drops doomed them. With the savant that Chico is (one of his coaches told us that the sophomore boasts a 5.4 GPA), there is room for improvement for this team so long as their boundary receivers catch the ball with greater consistency and the L’s develop a more potent rushing attack. The L’s look to bounce back next week against Cypress Bay.
FINAL SCORE:
Archbishop McCarthy beats Fort Lauderdale 21-20
About Josh Zedner:
Joshua Zedner is a beat writer covering high school football for Florida Man Sports. A native of Miami Beach, he attended Florida International University before finishing his undergraduate Business Administration degree at the University of Florida. Josh is an avid Miami sports fan, and he also writes a music review blog as a passion project under the @AlbumAnalysisWithZ handle on Instagram.
