As the calendar flips to October, it is becoming clearer each week that Chattanooga Christian School's football team is scary good.
And while a team with Boo Carter — one of the state's top-rated junior prospects with a catchy nickname to match his ability — will certainly have a chance against any opponent, it's the pieces surrounding him that separate the Chargers from their competition.
In a Division II-AA East Region battle of state-ranked rivals Thursday night, it was the CCS defense — particularly its front seven — that created nightmares for Boyd Buchanan as the Chargers pulled away for a 33-16 road win, their sixth straight in the series.
"We just couldn't make any plays on offense against them," said coach Gary Rankin, whose Buccaneers have lost two of their past three games after a 4-0 start in his first season. "Our defense gave us chances, but they wore on us up front. They didn't play harder than us, but they have more playmakers."
After a first half dominated by both defenses ended with fifth-ranked CCS (6-1, 4-0) clinging to a 6-3 lead, fourth-ranked Boyd Buchanan (5-2, 1-2) opened the third quarter by blocking a punt, then cashing in with Jacob Hutcheson's 11-yard touchdown pass to Caden Johnson to go ahead.
The Chargers answered the Bucs with a five-play, 75-yard touchdown drive capped by Carter's 14-yard run in which he broke four tackles near the line of scrimmage, spun off another defender and dragged two more into the end zone to regain the lead. That was the first of three unanswered touchdowns by CCS, which were sandwiched around a 71-yard interception return by Dre Martin to set up another score and take momentum, followed by a fumble recovery by CCS at midfield that led to a 21-yard touchdown pass from Jordan Gile to Javoris Havis that put the Chargers up by 16 to start the fourth quarter.
"It starts up front with our D-line and trickles down," said Chargers senior end Devoris Havis, who led a defense that allowed just 29 rushing yards. "We kept fighting even when it didn't look pretty and got it done in the second half.
"We know we're a good team, and that brings out other teams' best, too. We knew if we let them hang around, they were going to think they had us. We're a gritty team, and we feel like it's our time to take over."
CCS has scored an average of 47 points while winning six straight games since losing its season opener to three-time reigning DII-AAA state champion McCallie. The Chargers are off next week before finishing the regular season with two region games in three weeks.
"By them coming out and hitting us in the mouth like that, we knew we had to hit back," Carter said. "After they took the lead, we had a little talk on the sideline and knew we had to go take it."
Carter capped his big night with a 56-yard scoring sprint that gave him 116 yards on 11 carries, with four of those touchdowns.
"Boo is a playmaker, and he can make a lot of things happen," CCS first-year coach Phil Massey said. "If he breaks one and gets a step, he's got a different gear. He does a lot of things for us.
"We've been a big-play offense, but we just couldn't break one in the first half. We felt it was just a matter of time and getting into a rhythm. We had to learn to be content to take what they were giving us and live with the smaller chunk plays instead of the big ones.
"We played with better energy for most of the second half. Hopefully the sign of a good team is to have some adversity and come back from that the way we did."
East Ridge 40, Sequoyah 0: The Pioneers (1-6, 1-2 Region 3-4A) earned their first win of the season by mercy-ruling Sequoyah (0-7, 0-4). Cadion Harris had two touchdown catches, Jalen Ellis ran for two scores and T.J. Holmes and Tyree Smith both added long scoring plays.
Contact Stephen Hargis at shargis@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6293. Follow him on Twitter @StephenHargis.