Benedictine wins 4A State Championship over Carver-Columbus

SAVANNAH, Ga. (WTOC) - The Benedictine Cadets will be bringing home a trophy after beating Carver-Columbus 35-28 in the 4A State Championship inside Georgia State’s Center Parc Stadium.

Auburn commit Holden Geriner went 24 of 30 passing for 397 yards and four touchdowns in the win. Georgia baseball commit, Justin Thomas accounted for two of those scores- one rushing and one through the air, and junior Za’Quan Bryan caught the other two.

“I’m extremely proud, I mean, this is what we’ve been working toward since we lost last year. I mean, we knew it was going to be tough, but we just prepared extremely hard and came out and won,” Geriner said.

The game was tied at 14 at the half, but BC Head Coach Danny Britt said his message to the team was simple.

“You know, I told them we were playing tight, because we were. You could physically tell we were playing not to lose, not to mess up, and I told them to forget about it. Just completely forget about it. Go make plays,” Britt said. “We were going to love each other after the game anyway. Literally we were going to love each other- hug on each other and kiss on each other and all that stuff, so lets do it having fun, so that’s what they did.”

After a semifinal finish last year, and starting the season off 0-2, Britt said this was his team’s goal all along.

“I’m proud that we actually did it. That is what they said that—there was no—they’ve still never seen the region championship trophy we won. They didn’t care. They wanted one thing and that was to win a state championship and that’s what they did.”

Following that 0-2 start, the Cadets rattled off 13-straight wins on their way to the title.

“That was the drive we had this year, you know? We all had that one goal in our minds to win a state championship and every day and every game we just came out and fought hard,” Justin Thomas said. “Even though we came up and started 0-2, we knew that was not going to be the last of us, so I’m very proud of our team.”

This championship marked the third in school history for Benedictine, their first since moving up to Class 4A.

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