TALLAHASSEE — Jacob Gettman kept his nerve, and struck the football true. There was no doubt in his mind that it would split the uprights the moment it left his right foot.

As he turned around, he saw an explosion of emotion — catharsis after 20 years of high school football frustration, near-misses and heartbreak at Mainland High School, as recently as last December when the Bucs fell short to Lake Wales.

Head coach Travis Roland collapsed to his knees, All-American cornerback Zavier Mincey sprinted onto the field from the sideline, quarterback Dennis Murray Jr. cried and slapped the turf, offensive lineman Elijah Walker demanded his long-awaited ring. Helmets soared into the evening sky, and fireworks soon followed.

Mainland, for the first time since 2003, captured a state football championship.

Gettman nailed a 23-yard field goal as time expired, lifting Mainland to its second FHSAA title in program history in a 21-19 victory Thursday against St. Augustine in the Class 3S final at Bragg Memorial Stadium.

"To get to this place now, it's humbling because you realize how hard it is," said Roland, a captain and linebacker for the '03 Bucs.

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Mainland (14-1) fought back from a 13-0 first-quarter deficit, digging themselves into a hole with a couple of St. Augustine special-teams suckerpunches. Trenton Jones returned the opening kickoff 96 yards for a touchdown, and Marquice King scooped up a blocked field goal and brought it back 67 yards to the end zone.

"We weren't fazed at all," senior defensive lineman LJ McCray, a Florida commit, said. "We've been down before. We've been here before. We just had to come through and finish."

St. Augustine (13-1), held to a season-low point total after entering averaging 43.3 per game, ran just four offensive plays through the opening 17½ minutes. Mainland outgained the Yellow Jackets 225-42 in the opening half, but failed to score on two drives into the red zone.

Backed up inside its own 10 to start the second half, the Bucs marched 92 yards in nine plays — converting three times on third down, capped by a 15-yard TD toss from Murray to Clarence McCloud. The ensuing extra-point attempt was blocked.

After getting a stop, Mainland capped a dominant third period with Rodney Hill's 4-yard TD run in the final minute, though the Tulane commit was stuffed on a potential go-ahead two-point conversion attempt, leaving the Yellow Jackets ahead 13-12.

"It's just trusting ourselves and playing our brand of football, getting out of our head and not letting them outwork us," Murray said.

The Bucs grabbed their first lead early in the fourth, sparked by Bubba Westbrook's high-point interception of Wake Forest commit Locklan Hewlett near midfield. Four plays later, Murray faked a handoff and sprinted 44 yards past a stingy St. Augustine defense to give Mainland its first lead of the day.

St. Augustine responded with three straight highlight-reel plays: a 9-yard catch in traffic by Myles Simmons to move the chains on third down, an 18-yard gain by senior running back Devonte Lyons in which he rolled off a downed defender and a 52-yard scoring bomb from Hewlett to junior home run-hitter Carl Jenkins Jr. to restore a 19-18 advantage.

Hewlett missed Jenkins on a potential deep dagger with just over three minutes to play, giving the Bucs one last chance to compose a drive.

The team's ethos all season — "be legendary," as Murray noted — was put to the test. And the senior dual-threat quarterback delivered in crunch time.

Murray fired an 11-yard dart to Marquis McCants to keep the Bucs in the game on fourth-and-7, then slipped free for an 18-yard run to the Yellow Jackets' 5 in the final minute. Three snaps later, after St. Augustine stuffed two run attempts, Gettman hit the winner.

"This kid just etched his name as one of the best quarterbacks to come through Volusia-Flagler," Roland said of the 5-foot-10, 175-pounder, who recently claimed an offer from The Citadel. "He's a great, great player. Phenomenal player. Went through a whole entire summer, getting here late (from Flagler Palm Coast), developing chemistry with the guys. The last eight games, that kid raised his game to another level."

Murray accounted for 380 of Mainland's 505 yards of offense. He completed 13 of 21 passes for 210 yards and a touchdown, and ran 21 times for 170 yards and a touchdown. McCants caught six of eight targets for a game-high 95 receiving yards, and Khamani Robinson ran 22 times for 94 yards.

Dennis King III and Hill shared the lead with six tackles apiece, with the latter adding one sack and 1½ tackles for loss.

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Daytona Beach's Mainland high defeats St. Augustine for state title