Community School of Davidson Spartans move to regional finals

Every time Community School of Davidson wins a playoff game, it’s a new school record.

And after Friday night’s 33-28 victory over Thomas Jefferson Academy in a third round Class 1A West game at North Meck, the Spartans are a win away from playing for a state championship in the program’s third year of existence.

“It’s all uncharted waters,” said Spartans head coach TJ Albert, obviously happy to be in them.

Community School got its four touchdowns from four different players, and the Spartans defense forced the visiting Gryphons into four second-half turnovers to set up a couple of those scores to send the Spartans into the regional final on Friday.

“We’ve got a bunch of weapons, which is a good thing at this level,” Albert said. “Once we got to our conference schedule I thought we’d do well, and we’re very confident at this point.”

Community School spotted Thomas Jefferson, a rival in Southern Piedmont 1A conference, the opening touchdown after a scoreless first quarter, but scored on its last three possessions of the first half to take a 12-7 lead to the break. Caden Bonoffski kicked field goals of 34 and 30 yards and Holden Rizzo tossed a 43-yard pass to Justice Woods after taking a lateral from quarterback Luke Watts.

Rizzo also caught a 20-yard touchdown pass from Watts and threw a 3-yard scoring pass to Nick Piselli from the quarterback position in the second half.

The Spartans led by as many as 12 on a couple of occasions in the second half but couldn’t put the visitors away until the last two minutes, after the Gryphons recovered an onside kick at the Community School 45.

Quote: “The nice thing about tonight was that it was a team effort. Every time we needed a big play it was a different person — didn’t matter if it was the defense one time, or the offense one time, somebody we hadn’t gone to before. Everyone stepped up.”

Records: Thomas Jefferson 10-3; Community School of Davidson 12-2

Worth mentioning: Community School of Davidson is the first charter school to advance to the Class A regional final round..The game was a rematch of a regular season matchup on Oct. 26, won by Community School 26-14 after trailing in the first half.

What’s Next: Community School hosts Robbinsville for the 1A West Region championship at 7:30 p.m. Friday at North Meck. Thomas Jefferson’s season is complete.

This story was originally published November 27, 2015 at 11:40 PM with the headline "Community School of Davidson Spartans move to regional finals."