The Skinny
The Eagle’s Landing Christian Academy (ELCA) Chargers will face off against region rival Wesleyan this week for the GHSA Class A-Private title. ELCA won the first meeting handily back in early October. Wesleyan will be looking to win their second state title in school history while ELCA while be playing to win their fifth consecutive title and seventh overall.
ELCA is in the finals for the sixth consecutive season. They are winners of their last nine games and avenged their only loss of the season last week as they defeated Holy Innocents. The Chargers got 191 yards and a touchdown from running back Keaton Mitchell, while Gabe Wright threw for 122 yards and 2-TDs and Devon Dorsey caught three passes for 52 yards and 2-TDs to help lead the offense on Friday night. Defensively, Deion Fisher and David Wingfield both recorded 11 total tackles to help slow down the Holy Innocents’ offense. On their road to the finals, ELCA has defeated the No. 11 seed, No. 3 seed, and No. 2 seed. In their three-playoff games, they are averaging 37 points per game while the defense is allowing 24.6 points per game. On the season Wright has passed for 1,995 yards and 25-TDs while Mitchell has rushed for 1,838 yards and 39-TDs. As a team ELCA has rushed for 3,644 yards and 62-TDs. A win this week would earn ELCA their fifth consecutive state title.
The Wesleyan Wolves are in the finals for the first time since 2008. The Wolves have won their last eight games coming into this week. Sophomore quarterback J.C. French threw for 272 yards and 3-TDs and rushed for another 3-TDs to help lead the Wolves into the finals. Griffin Caldwell chipped in 124 rushing yards and 2-TDs and Micah Smith caught 5 passes for 162 yards as well in the win. On the season, French has passed for 2,680 yards and 31-TDs while Caldwell has rushed for 1,120 yards and 13-TDs. Micah Smith has caught 62 passes for 1,002 yards and 12-TDs and Cooper Blauser has has caught 64 passes for for 927 yards and 8-TDs to lead the Wesleyan receiving corps. In four playoff games, Wesleyan is averaging 41.7 points per game while the defense is allowing 19.2 points per game. The Wolves have defeated the No. 24 seed, No. 8 seed, No. 16 seed and the No. 4 seed on the road to the title game. A win this week would earn the Wolves their first state title since 2008.
We expect this game to be a little closer than the first game, but the weather might be a little more conducive to the ground game. With that said, we like ELCA this week by 11.