Nothing was routine about Friday’s pregame routine for Christ School varsity football.
An overturned 18-wheeler snarled Interstate 26 traffic in both directions, delaying the drive down to Columbus, N.C. Thunderclouds in the area were threatening enough to push kickoff back an hour.
To their credit, the Greenies blocked out all the off-field distractions and made their own luck.
Tray Mauney ’23 accounted for 270 yards of offense (156 passing, 114 rushing) and four touchdowns in a 39-7 rout at Polk County.
The senior from Forest City, N.C., stutter-stepped, then instinctively tucked the ball and ran on the Greenies’ second possession. Tray took the carry right up the gut of the Wolverines’ defense for a 70-yard quarterback keeper at the 4:39 mark of the opening quarter.
After that, Tray picked apart the Polk secondary with touchdown throws to Khalil Conley ’24 (9 yards and 30 yards) and N.C. State University recruit Zack Myers ’23 (24 yards). Khalil finished with five receptions for exactly 100 yards.
Kaden Brown ’24 scored his first two touchdowns for Christ School on runs of 1 and 7 yards.
Christ School (1-1) led 20-0 at halftime even though Polk County (1-1) had the ball inside Greenie territory three times in the first two quarters. The Wolverines would go on to score late in the third quarter but were limited to 129 yards of offense.
Cayden Jones ’24 recovered a fumble in the first minute of the second half that led to a Greenie touchdown.
“The key this week was to play four quarters of football,” Christ School head coach Chad Walker said.
“Last week (in a 10-6 home loss to Charlotte Latin), we gave up an opening-drive score and the wind kind of left the sails for us early. So, we figured if we could jump up tonight, maybe we’d have a different energy and execution level. Our guys realize that football is four quarters, we’ve got to put all four quarters behind us, make the next play, and put the last one behind us.”
The Greenies now turn their attention to next week’s home game with Carrollwood Day (Fla.) and Coach Walker was happy to see the strides the team made in all phases since the loss to Latin.
“We’re starting to jell, I think offensively and defensively, we were there last week,” he said.
“We felt pretty good about where the defense was with some minor adjustments. Offensively tonight, I thought we really started to jell and put it together. Still got a lot of work to do there, but special teams have been pretty much the difference-maker for us. Our special-teams unit, especially the kickoff unit, was awesome tonight.”
Friday was the first game between the Greenies and Polk County since 1989. The start of a home-and-home series was supposed to take place last year in Arden but had to be cancelled due to COVID-19.