State champs! Callaway caps unique 2020 season with first football title
Callaway led by two scores late in the third quarter. Fitzgerald had driven to the Cavaliers’ one-yard line and a touchdown would bring the Purple Hurricane within, potentially, five points.
But like Callaway’s defense did on the Purple Hurricane’s opening drive, the Cavaliers bent but didn’t break.
Fitzgerald went shotgun on fourth-and-goal from the 1-yard line. The ball was fumbled, the Cavaliers recovered and the championship celebrations began a little early.
A Callaway player paused amid the celebration and held up the football. A little while later, he’d hold a state championship trophy.
The Cavaliers beat Fitzgerald 22-17 Tuesday afternoon in Atlanta’s Center Parc Stadium, capping the program’s first state championship ever — in its first state championship appearance — and a season that saw it lose just one game.
“So proud of the work that went into getting here,” Cavaliers head coach Pete Wiggins said. “Not only the work this year, but the work for the last 15, 16 years. All the Cavaliers that came before today, establishing that work ethic, that tradition in our program.”
Cavaliers defense stands strong
Bend, but don’t break.
That was the unofficial motto for Callaway’s defense Tuesday, as the Purple Hurricane three times made it inside the Cavaliers’ 10-yard line.
Fitzgerald came away with two turnovers, and didn’t score a touchdown until the six-minute mark in the fourth quarter.
But after Callaway quarterback Demetrius Coleman interception, the Cavaliers defense was needed one last time and came up big. One play after Coleman threw the interception on a broken play, the Cavaliers defense pulled off an interception of their own through Cameron Smith.
And on the ensuing drive, running back Charlie Dixon ripped off a 69-yard touchdown to ice the program’s first state title.
Callaway dominates line of scrimmage
The one-two punch rushing attack of Dixon and quarterback Coleman that carried the Cavaliers to so much success in 2020 reared its head again in Atlanta.
Dixon, who ran for over 1,200 yards on the season, scored one touchdown and ran for over 220 yards, while Coleman ran for 85 yards and threw one touchdown.
The Cavaliers ran for over 300 yards.
“We stuck together,” Coleman said of the team effort. “And we went through a lot. We didn’t let nothing get in our way.”
A special, and unique, season
A year that featured a COVID-19-shaped off-season and months of uncertainty regarding what the season would actually look like ended in jubilation for the Cavaliers.
Spring practice was canceled in early 2020, as the pandemic began to spread across the U.S. Callaway High School closed for three days and switched to virtual learning in October due to a rise in COVID-19 cases.
The Cavaliers adapted.
“Our guys kept fighting,” Wiggins said.
They kept fighting late in the game Tuesday, which things got tight and the result seemed to be swinging in the balance. And that fight paid off.
“I can’t even describe the feeling,” Coleman said, a wide grin on his face. “It feels great, though. It feels great, I can tell you that.”
This story was originally published December 29, 2020 at 2:56 PM.
