The first eight-player football game of the season under the lights Friday night at Community Christian School got the ending to match the pageantry and history of the rest of it.
With visiting Sallie B. Howard School bringing a large contingent of fans as well as a cheerleading squad and a pep band for the first football game in school history, the Eagles pulled out a thrilling 28-22 victory that came down to the final seconds.
Trailing by six points, the Cyclones, who had their own sizable crowd, recovered an onside kick and chugged out a first down with about a minute to play. On first and 10 from the Eagles’ 45, CCS freshman quarterback Jack Beamon sent a pass over the middle that Eagles junior Darwin Kirby stepped in front of inside the 35. Kirby zipped down the side line before finally being taken down at the 2-yard line but the damage was done.
With the Cyclones out of timeouts, the Eagles took two knees and celebrated their first win in their first game.
“Yeah, my coaches get on me the whole time about getting up on ’em. I got a fast recovery. So I did it and we needed it,” Kirby said of his interception. “It feels good, especially to make history.”
The Cyclones were at a numbers disadvantage on the warm summer evening with just 14 players compared to the more than two dozen at the Eagles’ disposal. But head coach Andy Jackson said it was mistakes, more so than lack of depth that hurt CCS.
“I don’t know that that really got us tonight,” he said. “They hung in and fought pretty hard. I think, you know, dropping a few snaps on offense and stalling our own drives hurt us. We gave it up two touchdowns on fourth down and long. Pretty disappointed about that. We had a chance to win it here at the end. I felt like that’s probably the way the game would go with them having as many players as they had. I think our guys got a lot of heart. We were a little rustier offensively than I wanted us to be.”
The Eagles never trailed, taking an early lead on a long touchdown by Jalen Holmes before Kirby caught a lateral pass from Holmes on the right side, spun out to his left and outraced the entire CCS defense 55 yards for a TD. Holmes ran in the two-point conversion for a 14-0 lead.
“Space was crucial for us, the speed and trying to get outside,” said Sallie B. Howard head coach Marquis Spell. “We have to do a better job offensively on the line offensive line we couldn’t run the ball — what I wanted to do initially, getting around the edges.”
The Cyclones, with just 14 players, bulled their way back into the game on the next possession. Connor Ferguson set it up with a 70-yard kickoff return and Tavares Williams chugged 15 yards on first down for the first CCS points of the season.
Beamon hit Bailey Bunn for the conversion and the 14-8 margin stood until the second half, when the Cyclones went three-and-out after the kickoff. The punt went to SBH sophomore Isaiah Allen, who dropped it then picked up and dipped and ducked his way to a 44-yard TD with 9:37 to go in the third quarter.
Community Christian came right back, however, with a seven-play, 67-yard scoring march that culminated in Beamon’s 1-yard dive and two-point run. He and Bunn hooked up for completions of 20 and 13 yards while Williams and senior Grant Barnes each had long runs on the drive.
Their lead down to 20-16 with more than five minutes to play in the third quarter, the Eagles picked three first downs before turning it over on downs at the CCS 37. The Cyclones got to fourth and 4 at their 43 but the snap wasn’t clean and Beamon had to fall on it and kill the drive.
“They didn’t know what they doing their first game, but they still ran it smoother than we did, obviously,” Beamon said. “A lot of dropped snaps, a lot of mishaps in the offense. We’ve just got to practice and get better.”
Two plays later, Eagles senior Isaiah McCullough bolted through the CCS defense for a 38-yard gain to the 5. Allen took care of the honors for his second TD and followed it with a two-point run to push the Sallie B. lead to 28-16.
With players on both sides starting to cramp frequently, the onus was on the Cyclones with fewer bodies and points.
“We were definitely all tired by the end of the game, but I think we did good for what we had, especially our first game and not much practice,” Beamon said.
The Cyclones had enough left to unfurl a 60-yard drive that required three third-down conversions and a seven-yard scramble by Beamon on fourth and 3 at the Sallie B. 23. Bunn gathered a 4-yard flip from Beamon for six points. The two-point run failed, leaving the Cyclones down 28-22 with 2:36 remaining.
With the Eagles holding their first practice July 18, Spell fretted over the impossibility of covering every aspect of a game. Onside kick receive might get another go over in practice next week after the Eagles failed to come up with the ball and CCS was back in business at its 43 and a timeout remaining. But after Williams was stuffed for no gain on third and 1 at the SBH 48, the Cyclones had to burn their final timeout.
Tackling was a concern for both coaches during the preseason but the Eagles were able to make some key stops at crunch time.
“We did a little better toward the end,” Spell reviewed. “We were tackling too high to start off with. That’s due to newness. This was our first 8-on-8 scrimmage.”
On fourth down, Beamon stretched his 6-foot-7 frame to pick up three yards and the first down while the clock continued to tick. On first and 10 from the 45, he sent a pass down the middle but Kirby intersected its path and, after a momentary bobble, pulled in and was off to the races, clutching the ball – and Sallie B. Howard’s initial football victory – tightly as he ran.
The Eagles celebrated on the south end of the Cyclones field, as close to a home game as Sallie B. Howard will have this season, although it’s possible the teams could schedule a second meeting later this season.
Community Christian, a Mid-Atlantic Christian Athletic Association charter member but a football independent, will be home next Friday against Northeast Academy. The Eagles, also playing as independents in football while the other SBH teams play in the Carolina Athletic Association for Schools of Choice, have a game at Berean Baptist in Fayetteville next Saturday, Aug. 26.
Winning was great, Spell said, but it won’t change the Eagles’ plan to keep focusing on fundamentals.
“Hit, block and tackle! Hit, block and tackle!” exhorted Spell.