St. Raphael’s defense, above, swarms all over Hendricken’s offense and shuts down the passing game of Hawks quarterback Thomas Verdi, left, yesterday.

The Providence Journal / John Freidah

EAST PROVIDENCE — They don’t have a lot of classmates and yesterday they didn’t have their star teammate, but what the members of the St. Raphael Academy football team do have is Rhode Island’s top high school football prize.

The Saints, despite playing without their injured star quarterback, Stanley Dunbar, completed a perfect season as they captured the R.I. Interscholastic League’s Division I state title with an 8-6 victory over Bishop Hendricken in yesterday’s Citizens Bank Super Bowl at Pierce Field.

The victory gives St. Raphael, the parochial school from Pawtucket that has about 270 boys in its student body, its second Division I state title in school history and the first Division I crown since 1984. The triumph also gave the Saints a 12-0 record, including a 10-0 mark against Division I competition.

It was Peter Micali’s 2-yard touchdown run with five minutes to play, on the first play after a 70-yard punt return by Jordan Monk, which provided the Saints margin of victory.

Monk’s spectacular return came on the free kick after Hendricken, leading 6-0 with just over five minutes to play, had opted to take a safety rather than try punting the ball from its own end zone.

The move seemed like good strategy since the Hawks would be punting from their 20-yard line with a strong wind at their back. Indeed the punt sent Monk back inside his own 30-yard line, but the Saints senior speedster quickly spotted an opening on the left side and broke loose until he was forced out of bounds 2 yards from the goal line.

“As soon as I got that punt I knew I was going to take it back because nobody has kicked to me all season. I finally had a chance to take one back,” said Monk, who was named the game’s MVP. “I was very surprised that they kicked it to me. I saw a whole bunch of blockers on the left side so I followed them.”

After Micali put St. Raphael in front with his touchdown plunge, the Saints needed a couple of strong efforts from its defensive unit to protect the advantage as Hendricken had two possessions in St. Raphael territory in the final five minutes.

But, as the Saint defenders have been doing this season, they came up with the big plays when they needed them.

On Hendricken’s first possession following Micali’s touchdown the Hawks drove from the Saints 49 to the 16-yard line with just over two minutes to play. But a hard hit by a St. Raphael tackler forced a fumble on a Hendricken running play and the Saints Evan Haworth recovered on the 13.

When St. Raphael was forced to punt after three plays, Hendricken got four more chances to score, starting from the St. Raphael 35, but the Saints secondary successfully defended four pass attempts, including a pass interception on the final play of the game.

The game-closing effort was the finale of a playoff performance in which the St. Raphael defense only gave up six points in two games. The Saints had earned their Super Bowl berth with a 6-0 victory over Cranston West in the semifinal round on Tuesday.

The late-game stand was part of a game-long effort in which the Saints shut down the powerful Hendricken ground attack that had played a major role in the Hawks scoring 250 points in their eight regular-season Division I games. Hendricken’s only points yesterday came on Matt Brown’s 90-yard punt return for a touchdown with 12 seconds to play in the first half.

Before Brown broke loose on his scoring dash the Saints defense had limited the Hawks to a net-29 yards from scrimmage in the first half. Hendricken managed only one first down in the first half and that didn’t come until the final five minutes of the second quarter.

Sparked by the running of All-Stater Brandford Sowah, who had been held to a net 22 yards rushing in the first half, the Hendricken ground game finally began covering real estate in the second half.

With Sowah gaining 47 yards on six carries the Hawks marched from their own 23 to the St. Raphael 30 early in the third quarter, but then the St. Raphael defense forced the Hawks to turn over the ball as they held Sowah to 6 yards on three carries and successfully defended against a fourth-down pass attempt.

That was the Hawks only serious scoring threat in the second half until they launched the drive to the St. Raphael 16 after the Saints had taken the 8-6 lead.

The Saints needed that type of defensive performance with Dunbar out of the lineup for both playoff games with an ankle injury.

It was Dunbar who had led the Saints to 9-0 record through the first three months of the season as he scored 19 touchdowns and run for 1,430 yards. But in the Saints final regular season game against Rogers on Thanksgiving eve, Dunbar severely injured his ankle on the third play of the game and didn’t play again. Unlike in Tuesday’s semifinal-round game when he was on the sidelines in street clothes, he dressed for yesterday’s game, but it was obvious from the way he hobbled along the sidelines that he was never going to see any action.

“It was a whole team thing like it has been all year,” said St. Raphael coach Mike Sassi. “It’s amazing I have never been around a team before that loses a star player like we did and you never would have known at practice that he wasn’t there. The kids never put their heads down, they kept working hard. They just felt confident.

“Obviously it would have been a little easier with Stanley,” Sassi added. “We wouldn’t have been here if it wasn’t for Stanley Dunbar so he was still a big part of it.”

Hendricken

0  6 0  0 — 6

St. Raphael

0  0  0  8 — 8

 Hendricken scoring: Brown (90 punt return).

 St. Raphael scoring: Micali (2 run). Safety – Hendricken punter stepped out of end zone.

jgillool@projo.com