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Welcome Back: Murray, Plant On To Title Game

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By JOE HENDERSON | The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 13, 2008

TAMPA - As the celebration was going on around him late Friday, the smile on Aaron Murray's face seemed wide enough to engulf Dad's Stadium. A few yards away, Phillip Ely was smiling widely, too.

The Plant Panthers are going to the state high school football finals again after a 33-21 victory over Palm Beach Gardens Dwyer. The Panthers wouldn't have won this one without Murray. They wouldn't have been here without Ely.

Murray is the heralded senior quarterback whose season supposedly ended Oct. 16 when he broke his left fibula and dislocated his left ankle against Hillsborough. Ely, a sophomore, stepped in and led Plant to seven wins, including last week against mighty Armwood.

Friday night, Ely stepped back - and was happy to do it.

Murray miraculously came back, the broken bones healed and his ankle heavily taped, and played every snap. He played every snap.

A lot of people in Ely's spot might have pouted, human nature being what it is. They might have felt unappreciated, even overlooked. They might have grumbled about the coach.

Not Ely.

He was asked how hard it was to sit in Plant's most important game of the season.

"Hard? Not hard at all," he said. "It was hard because of the circumstance for our team when we were behind, but it was just a great game. We played a tough competitor like we knew we would. It's insane.

"I was jumping up and down. I was so excited. Aaron is Aaron. He is a stud in football. We played for him."

Welcome Back

Well, there was a lot of reason to be excited, starting with the first pass Murray threw after leaving Dad's Stadium on an injury cart. It was a 33-yard bullet to DeAndre Queen, and it was simply electric.

"He was so wide open, I just prayed I wouldn't overthrow him," Murray said.

He didn't.

"That's a pretty good welcome back," Panthers coach Robert Weiner said. "Dwyer adjusted pretty quickly, but we had seen something in the films from the get-go and we put that on the board right away."

Before he was done, Murray would throw another touchdown pass and complete 12 of 26 for 197 yards. If he seemed a little rusty at times, that can be overlooked. Plant needed every bit of what he had - what everyone on the team had, really - and a very well-timed penalty against Dwyer didn't hurt things, either.

We'll get to that in a minute. The Murray Moment at the start of that game was the kind of stuff they'll talk about for years. The whole night will be, actually.

"A courageous performance," Weiner said. "Here's a kid who had a sliver of hope after he was hurt in the Hillsborough game eight weeks ago, just one little sliver of hope to play, and yet he did everything in his power to get back for his team and his teammates.

"That just says something good about the young man. He loves his team, he loves his teammates, and he just wanted to contribute in some way. And he sure did tonight. What a performance."

Dwyer didn't back down, though, and might have won the game had not an 83-yard touchdown pass with about 2 minutes left been called back. It would have given Dwyer the lead, but there was a holding penalty. A holding penalty that, ahem, the Dwyer coaches expressed disapproval of, rather strongly, to the officials.

Two Good Teams

Too bad something like that had to come up, because this was a great high school football game between teams that never backed down. It also doesn't detract from Plant's great night one bit.

Only high school sports can produce nights like this. The emotion was honest, the effort was raw, and the feelings on the Plant sideline are real.

"I never would have dreamt that I would ever be back in a Plant uniform again," Murray said. "But to come back and play in this game, and now play in the state championship game, is something very special and I'll never forget."

A very special game, and two very special guys.

And one extremely special team.

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