High school football playoff roundup: Calvary Christian wins first state title
Then-Calvary Christian Headmaster Len McWilliams and the rest of school administrators held a strategic planning meeting in 2006 to discuss the possibility of starting a football program.
The project got the green light in 2010 and the Knights fielded their first team the following year, in 2011.
Nearly a decade later, that program just won its first state championship.
The Knights defeated Community Christian 42-12 Friday night at Kinnett Stadium. They scored 28 points in the span of five minutes following a scoreless first quarter, putting away a game that looked destined to be a defensive struggle before the halftime buzzer sounded.
“Hard to put into words right now,” said Knights head coach Brian Osborne, the program’s only head football coach in its 10-year history. “Just thinking back over the last 10 years, going from starting this program from scratch to this point right now, just seeing how far we’ve come.”
Osborne said the staff showed players highlights from that 2011 team — which won two games and featured just one player who could bench press 200 pounds — in the lead-up to Friday’s state championship.
This wasn’t a typical blowout: Both teams failed to score in the opening quarter. The Knights had three fumbles in the first 12 minutes, two of which were recovered by Community.
But the defense that Calvary relied on so much in 2020 put together arguably its best half of football to date. Elijah Chestnut and Luke Zevac each returned interceptions for touchdowns during the second-quarter onslaught.
Calvary’s defense (14 points) outscored Community on its own, and gave up more than 14 points just once in its last six games to close out 2020.
“I can’t put into words what this team has done this year,” Osborne said, his jacket still dripping from the Gatorade bath he received. “From the beginning of the year ‘til now, how they’ve changed the culture of the team. They were just bought in to what we were doing.”
Speaking of a culture change: That’s what convinced Jesse Donohoe, and many of the team’s seniors who double as baseball players, to join the football program.
Donohoe and several of his friends were on the fence before the season started. One visit from defensive coordinator David Spitzmiller at the beginning of the school year convinced the group to join.
The buy-in wasn’t there, Donohoe previously told the Ledger-Enquirer. But the talent level was, so if the mindset changed, things could really change for the better.
And things did, quickly, change for the better.
The Knights closed their season with eight consecutive wins, all relatively comfortable victories. Donohoe threw for over 1,700 yards despite missing the team’s first three games.
Chestnut, a running back, overcame an early fumble to run for 180 yards and two touchdowns, plus the pick-six.
The school, at one point in the early 2000s, sold T-shirts that jokingly read “Calvary football: undefeated since 1975.”
Now, the program has a state championship to its name.
“I told (the administration) when I was hired to expect no wins the first three years,” Osborne said. “Years four and five, maybe one to two wins. Hopefully playoffs year six or seven. The Lord’s blessed us with so much success before then.
“There’s no way you would’ve told me back in 2011 that we’d be state champions within 10 years. There’s no way.”
Final scores
- Perry 34, LaGrange 4
- Savannah Christian 37, Pacelli 24
- Calvary 42, Community 12
- Callaway 16, Lovett 9
Carver vs. Baldwin: 4 p.m. Saturday at Memorial Stadium
What to know
2 local teams remain
With losses by LaGrange and Pacelli, and Calvary wrapping up its season, only two Chattahoochee Valley teams remain in the playoffs.
Carver faces Baldwin at Memorial Saturday at 4 p.m., with the winner facing an undefeated Jefferson Dragons team.
Callaway advanced past Lovett, and will host Thomasville next week.
This story was originally published December 4, 2020 at 11:50 PM.
