Throw the football in the general direction of No. 4 and watch the magic happen.
Christ School varsity football faced an existential crisis earlier this week when the lynchpin of its offense, starting quarterback Mak Anderson ’28, went down with an injury.
In his absence, the production and results were mixed at times Friday, let alone the Greenies gave up hundreds of yards in penalties to Charlotte Christian.
But when it mattered most, backup Philipp Seitz ’28 put the ball where it needed to go – hitting Dre Smith ’27 on a pair of timing routes for touchdowns of 28 and 33 yards. The scores broke a 21-21 tie in the final 9 minutes, 30 seconds and catapulted the Greenies to a 35-21 home win, their first in this NCISAA series since 2021.
Dre, a 6-foot-1, 179-pound senior from Greenville, S.C., now has 16 touchdowns in seven games for the Greenies (6-1), the second-most in school history. And Friday’s game clinched a winning season, something that Christ School football hasn’t accomplished since winning the NCISAA Division II state championship in 2020.
“We wanted to be that first winning team, that was the gameplan,” Dre said.
“The coaches got us fired-up at halftime. I got yelled at, and I knew what I needed to do. We had the same plan (without Mak), we didn’t change anything. (Philipp) got in and played great, he did what he was supposed to do. I trained hard over the summer for this, and if you work hard, good things come to you.”
Christ School never trailed the Knights (2-4) but never got too comfortable either. On his second carry of the game, Raphael Marchand broke an 80-yard touchdown run at the 9:12 mark of the first quarter. Camden Long-White ’29 then had a pick-six interception return to make the score 14-0.
The Greenies took a 14-7 lead to halftime and the first touchdown connection between Philipp and Dre (18 yards) broke a 14-14 tie with 2:46 remaining in the first quarter. Camden also had one of two fumble recoveries for Christ School, which was able to overcome a turnover of its own at the goal line that came late in the first half. A holding penalty negated Raphael’s 90-yard touchdown run to start the third quarter.
Next week is Senior Night for the Greenies when they host Rabun Gap (3-4) at 7 p.m.