Published: November 08, 2009 12:23 am      

Greenville Christian wraps up district title

Greenville Christian School’s No. 1 state-ranked Eagles wrapped up a perfect district campaign with a 54-8 six-man football victory over the No. 7 rated Rockwall Heritage on Saturday.

The 9-1 Eagles earned a first-round playoff bye as the District 2 champion in the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools’ Division I.

Heritage, which dropped to 4-5 for the season, will enter the playoffs as the third-place team from District 2 and will face District 3 champion Summit Christian on Saturday in Cedar Ridge.

Heritage surprised the Eagles by driving 60 yards to score in seven plays with the opening possession. Quarterback Nathan Mateer, who’d thrown a 23-yard completion to Sam Prater for a first down, connected with his brother Aaron Mateer for an 18-yard touchdown pass.

The GCS defense made an adjustment at that point and limited Heritage to only one first down and 19 yards for the rest of the game.

“We started off just a little slow,” said GCS coach Larry Uland. “After that our defense stepped up.”

The GCS offense also racked up 255 yards, scoring on six of its eight possessions.

GCS senior quarterback Jake Schumann celebrated his 18th birthday by passing for 205 yards and four touchdowns. Schumann was 8-of-15 including touchdown throws of 44, 29, 25 and 15 yards. He’s now thrown for 49 touchdowns this season.

Wide receiver Nick Nelson led the Eagles with five catches for 123 yards, including touchdown grabs of 44, 25 and 15 yards.

Kelton Pitts caught a 29-yard touchdown pass.

Andrew Wombaker caught two passes for 33 yards and Tanner Barnes caught a 31-yard touchdown pass.

Barnes also led the GCS rusher with 46 yards on five carries, including a 13-yard run to end the game via the 45-point mercy rule with 7:24 left in the third quarter.

Pitts also returned a fumble 27 yards for a touchdown.

Nelson was 4-of-4 on bonus kicks.

Schumann also passed twice to Barnes for conversions following problems with the snap and hold on attempted kicks.

The Eagles also picked up two points when an errant punt snap was recovered by Heritage in the end zone for a safety.

GCS limited Heritage to 79 yards of total offense for the game, including just 15 yards rushing.

“We’ve been solid defensively for the last several weeks,” said Uland.

Uland said the Eagles’ blocking was much better than in last week’s 30-28 victory over Dallas Covenant.

“Our backs stepped up and I’m really happy with the way our backs blocked,” he said.

Barnes, on one block, knocked two Heritage defenders down and Hawthorne sent another Heritage defender rolling with a crushing block.