It’s great to be a Hawthorne Hornet.

They’ve represented the 352 perfectly.

Thursday night in Tallahassee, Hawthorne defeated Madison County, 22-13, to win back-to-back FHSAA Class 1R state titles.

The Hornets (13-0) finished the season unbeaten for the second straight year and they became the first Alachua County football team ever to win consecutive championships.

“If teams don’t know that Hawthorne is for real by now, I think they might know,” said offensive coordinator Greg Bowie, who is head coach Cornelius Ingram’s older brother. “CI does a phenomenal job along with the other coaches, but the work that he puts in, the countless hours, the sacrifices, he’s a heck of a coach, he’s a heck of a motivator, he does it all, so hats off to him.”

Last year after their first state title in program history, I wrote that it’s all about family at Hawthorne.

“We hold our guys accountable on and off the field,” Ingram said. “I have an amazing coaching staff who I allow them to do their job. You talk about real friendship. All of those guys on my coaching staff, they were either in my wedding or at my wedding. We really care about each other on and off the field and when your team and the players see it, they follow. This is an amazing feeling.”

Hawthorne lost to Madison County, 13-12, in the 2021 state championship game, but they haven’t lost since, reeling off 25 consecutive victories.

“It’s surreal,” said Hawthorne defensive coordinator Dustin Adkins, who is also the school’s athletics director. “A lot of people talk about what we do outside of our program, or who comes in, or we’re doing anything different. At the end of the day we’ve built a culture. It’s not on the players, we don’t have any coaches that leave. Our coaching tree has been intact for the last four years. There’s a method to this madness. It’s not just, ‘oh, we’re just plugging random kids in and playing,’ no, we take whatever comes, whatever year we have, we line them up and we coach them up and they see the same cultures.”

The coaches say the key is consistency. It takes more than just good players.

“They see consistency,” Adkins said. “We’re a great program and a lot of people want to take shots, but at the end of the day I don’t care who you get, you have to win, and I think that’s one thing that we’ve been showing people, we can win.”

Madison County is a storied program with six state titles, including three in a row from 2017-2019, plus the 2021 Class 1A state championship.

“It’s a very special moment,” said Cornelius’s son, C.J. Ingram, who is now 25-0 as the team’s starting quarterback. “I’m just thankful to have the teammates and coaches that I have because three interceptions in the first half, that’s not normal, so being able to have the teammates that I have to push me through the adversity and just listening to the coaches to come out with this win over Madison County, a very good football team, I’m just very thankful.”

Ingram had only thrown four interceptions the entire season so the Hornets had to overcome some adversity in the first half.

Despite the three picks, and a blocked punt that led to a Madison County touchdown, the game was tied 13-13 at the half.

“Our coaches told us at halftime it’s 0-0 so whoever wants it more in the second half that’s who is going to win the game,” said C.J., who only threw for 103 yards but finished with 75 yards rushing on 15 carries.

The offense wasn’t able to score in the second half, but the defense kept Madison County off the scoreboard too. The Hornets scored the final nine points of the game on a safety and a fumble recovery in the endzone.

“That’s probably our worst half as a team in general on all sides of the ball, special teams had a punt blocked, had some turnovers, but it’s just the resiliency of the team…second half we came out and I thought we did a heck of a job,” Adkins said. “They moved it a little bit in the third quarter but we started getting some traction. We started flying around and they never quit. That’s one thing about our kids, they never quit. They’re always going to compete.”

Following the safety with 9:30 to play, the Hornets put the ball in the hands of junior running back Keenon Johnson, who finished the game with 110 yards rushing.

“Man, it feels amazing to win it with my brothers,” Johnson said. “Last drive we told everybody to step up, especially the seniors and the O-line, we said, ‘We got to win this,’ and they stepped up and I just put my shoulder and my head down and I just ran through them. There was no bringing me down.”

Johnson carried the ball eight times for 33 yards on Hawthorne’s final drive, which began with 9:22 to play in the game, and although Hawthorne failed to score, gave Madison County the ball back at their own 6-yard line with 3:29 to play.

“He did his thing,” Cornelius said. “He’s been a workhorse all year. I’m happy he’s returning. He deserves a lot of credit. He’s a humble kid, runs extremely hard every single play, blocks in the passing game. I’m just happy I get to coach him. We had a mix up down here in the red zone, we thought we could probably get a shift and get C.J. (Ingram) on the edge. I wish I could have got him in the endzone because he was carrying the load.”

He finished the game with 21 carries and averaged 5.2 yards per carry.

“I’ve said this probably almost every week, every game, Keenon is very special,” C.J. said. “He’s the best running back in the state and he’ll definitely go into the spring with all of the offers that he wants.”

After the time-consuming drive, Madison County (10-2) ran a reverse from inside their 5-yard line but fumbled in the endzone, which was recovered by junior Naziy Gent for the score to put the final nail in the coffin.

“That was the closest game we’ve played all year,” said Navy commit Andrew Zock, who averaged over 10 tackles per game this year. “That’s a hard team to beat. They run their stuff very, very well, and they’re very well coached. They’ve got great athletes all over the field and they do what they need to do to put themselves in position to win games. We were able to make the adjustments. They got that big 99-yard run and we made our adjustments and they didn’t score after that. It means a lot to stop an offense like that.”

Zock (North Marion) and wide receiver Caleb “Megatron” Rollerson (North Marion) were two of a few key transfers who played just one season for Hawthorne but made a huge impact, along with senior wide receiver Alvon Isaac (The Villages).

Isaac, a USF commit, just missed a 1,000-yard season with 933 yards and 17 TDs.

“It feels great to be a state champion,” Isaac said. “We worked hard over the summer, through the spring. Madison has a great football team. They’re well coached so we knew we had to come in and execute and do what we had to do to win. This whole season we had a mission. Madison beat us two years ago so we knew we had to make up for that.”

From the coaches to the players, this year’s team was special.

“I’ve played a lot of football in my life and this is the most unselfish and most (complete) team, plays as a team, that I’ve ever been on,” Zock said. “Everybody is for each other. We trust the coaches, we trust the players, we trust ourselves. We’ve got great support everywhere.”