Yes, Olympic won the league title Friday. But these upstart Trojans have bigger plans

After defeating rival Ardrey Kell in the SoMeck 4A conference championship 34-21, Olympic coaches and players alike alluded to the fact that it felt great to beat the Knights and win the conference title. But, they said, they aren’t done yet.

“From this point on, you are competing for a state championship,” coach Brandon Thompson said after the game. “We want to go one week at a time and go 1-0 each week. We still have to continue to get better in our preparation and continue to have high expectations of the young men.”

Olympic earned a shared conference championship in a three-way tie during the COVID-19-altered spring season of 2021. Providence, Ardrey Kell and Olympic all boasted 5-1 conference records that year. This is the Trojans’ first outright championship in 13 years going back to 2009, when they went 10-3.

The caveat this year? Olympic achieved its success despite the school’s population being cut about in half when the new CMS school, Palisades, opened.

“This means a lot for us,” senior quarterback Elijah Holmes said. “Knowing that half of our team before the season got cut off into a new school, and knowing that we had to play for each other and play with what we had. We just had to love each other and keep going.”

Holmes doesn’t want his senior year to end.

“Our first goal is to get a playoff win,” Holmes said. “We haven’t had one of those in a minute. We definitely want to get that playoff win, but after that just try to get to states.”

The Trojans’ 34 points were the most that any team has scored on Ardrey Kell all season. Weddington came close, scoring 31, but in large part, the Knights’ defense has been stingy.

How did Olympic do it? Holmes thought his team’s hurry up offense rattled the Knights.

“I think we did well, we saw that they blitzed a lot and we went hurry up,” Holmes said. “I think that a lot of teams don’t go hurry up on them and they weren’t expecting that from us, so it worked really well for us tonight.”

Thompson was proud of his squad after the game, and alluded to a conversation he had with the team earlier in the week that may have given them the confidence they needed to get over the edge.

“The guys worked really hard all week,” said Thompson, whose team ends the regular-season against Myers Park Friday. “I complimented them yesterday about how proud I was of their preparation and effort all week. To be able to cap that off with a win just always feels good. It tastes great when you feel that victory.”