A Sunday Sports article incorrectly said that Friendly High School?s victory in Saturday's Maryland 3A football championship was the school's third state title. It was its third in which the team has gone undefeated and its fifth overall.
Maryland 3A Championship
Haden Powers Patriots
Quarterback Finishes Career With Title, Passing Record: Friendly 37, River Hill 18
Sunday, December 10, 2006; Page E07
BALTIMORE, Dec. 9 -- Friendly prepared all season for this night and when it came time for business, the Patriots were ready -- on and off the field.
Sensational quarterback Joe Haden passed for two touchdowns, ran for two more scores and played a role in two exciting two-point conversions, allowing the second-ranked Patriots to dance and pose for plenty of pictures as the final minutes elapsed in their 37-18 victory over No. 5 River Hill in the Maryland 3A final in front of 4,500 at M&T Bank Stadium on Saturday night.
  Josh Haden tries to get through a phalanx of River Hill defenders. Friendly trailed in only one game this season. (By Jonathan Newton -- The Washington Post) |
"We've been looking forward to this since the first day of August," said Haden, adding that the team would say "state champs" when breaking the huddle. "We knew we had the team at every skill position and when the line stepped up, everything was there. Every day, every single day, every single practice, there was never a moment we didn't talk about being state champs."
Haden, who plans to enroll at the University of Florida for the spring semester, completed 11 of 16 passes for 157 yards and rushed 15 times for 59 yards. He finished his career as the state's all-time leading public school passer with 7,371 yards and tied for the state public school record with 80 career touchdown passes.
"A lot of people don't have an answer for number one," Friendly Coach George Earley said of Haden. "We get in trouble and he gets us out of it."
Friendly (14-0) was rarely in trouble all season -- trailing in only one game -- and was only briefly threatened Saturday. River Hill closed within 15-12 on a two-yard run by quarterback Daniel Hostetler on the opening possession of the second half. But Haden quickly countered with a seven-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Vincent Hill to make it 21-12.
Two plays later, Haden intercepted a pass. Shortly thereafter, he threw a 25-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Carlos Davis running down the left seam. On the point-after try, a high shotgun snap went over Haden's head. He picked up the ball at the 15, looped back to the 26 before heading up the field and running into the end zone for the two points and a 29-12 lead.
With the game well in hand down the stretch, Friendly's players were ready to celebrate. Aware that Earley was nursing a cold, players dumped a bucket of confetti on their coach's head -- an idea that was conceived by an assistant coach, Hill said.
It was Friendly's third state championship. The most recent came in 1998, a team that Earley spoke about often.
"That was all he ever talked about," linebacker Rakeem Vick said. "Now, I'm looking forward to coming back and hearing Coach Earley talk about our team."
