One of Baltimore's high school football juggernauts, St. Frances Academy, will face Corner Canyon in the inaugural Overtime Nationals High School Football Championship.
The game will take place in Baltimore at Under Armour Stadium on Wednesday, December 10th, at 7pm on ESPN2.
St. Frances currently has the #1 defense, and Canyon has the #3 offense in the country, respectively.
The winner of this game will be crowned the first-ever Overtime Nationals champion and secure a $250,000 donation to enhance their athletic program.
It's safe to say"it's all on the line." No pun intended.
St. Frances Academy, in its short time of having a football team, has had a meteoric rise.
Going from a school with virtually no football program and no field to practice on to a football powerhouse.
The house that Mother Elizabeth Mary Lange built at 501. East Chase Street has won multiple MIAA State Championships.
Even though the Panthers have reached national acclaim, not all of Charm City has been
happy for them during their journey to the top of the mountain.
In 2018, St. Frances was under fire during what was seen as a controversy over talent on the field.
All of the teams in the MIAA forfeited their games against the Panthers.
This round table decision came on the heels of said schools citing unbalanced talent level and player safety, as St. Frances recruits players from Baltimore and out of state.
This decision to forfeit games seemed to be ironic at the time.
As many in favor of St. Frances Academy's way of team building deem their strategy to be fair, as every player on the Panthers had to be approved by the MIAA.
St. Frances was led by then-coach Biff Poggi, who was the former coach at Gilman High School, a prestigious all-boys high school located in the Roland Park neighborhood in North Baltimore.
Similar to his time at St. Frances, Coach Poggi, while at Gilman, would lead the school to winning a number of MIAA championships.
In 2020, HBO would release a documentary centering the St. Frances Football program called "The Cost of Winning."
The documentary claims St. Frances was made an example out of based on racial bias.
