A new pope was elected, Hurricane Sandy ravaged the East Coast, and the Summer and Winter Olympic Games were played.  All of these events occurred over the course of 1449 days, the length of Christ Church’s historic football win streak.

The Christ Church football team’s game against Abbeville on August 28, 2015 had the entire CCES community on edge.  The fans would end up witnessing the end of the longest win streak in state history at 55 games.

“It goes back all the way to the first year I got here.  We started challenging them to make it to the state championship, and we built on that and built on that and built on that each year – and that’s how the streak came about,” Christ Church Head Coach Don Frost said.

Prior to the game against Abbeville, the last time Christ Church lost was August 26, 2011 against Liberty, 20-6.  During this game, Christ Church was down six starters including senior quarterback Hunter Townes.  Freshman Andrew Slade assumed Townes’s role but could not lead the Cavaliers to a victory.  Coach Frost told his players after the game that they could either “play for fun or get better.”  The Cavaliers were once again down six starters in their following game against Augusta Day Prep.  This time around, Slade was able to lead the Cavs to a 42-0 victory, the first win of the streak.

“We never set out and said we are going to try to win this many games. We’ve got one goal, and our goal is to win the last game we play every year,” said Coach Frost.

During the streak, Christ Church won four consecutive state championships including a 35-14 win against Lakeview in 2011, a 35-24 win against Johnsonville in 2012, a 28-21 win against Carvers Bay in 2013, and a 23-14 win against Bamberg-Ehrhart in 2014.  Coach Frost said the team played in many close wins in the regular season too – the most intriguing being the game against Eastside in 2014.  This game at Eastside followed the Cavaliers emotional victory against Abbeville in which they broke the previous state record win streak with their 42nd consecutive win.  The Cavaliers were down 28-7 to Eastside at halftime. Behind the leadership of then senior quarterback Andrew Slade, the Cavs outscored Eastside by 44 points in the second half, winning the game 51-28.

The Cavaliers have had many star players in addition to Slade. Thad Mangum and Dorien Dickey graduated last year, with four state championship rings, and now play at Wofford and Jacksonville State, respectively. Quan White, CCES’s all-time leader in yards, graduated two years ago and now plays wide receiver at Charleston Southern. Demetrius Anthony also graduated two years ago after serving as Christ Church’s starting quarterback and now plays wide receiver at East Tennessee State.

Coach Frost said that Christ Church doesn’t have “star players” but rather a star team. “There will be individual accolades given to individual athletes, but as a team we don’t look at that,” said Coach Frost.

According to Coach Frost, the players have “a renewed vigor” after the weight of the streak was lifted off their shoulders. Following the game, Coach Frost said to his players, “I’m proud of you because of what you accomplished and what you’ve helped accomplish. And the streak was great, 55 games.”

The Cavs’ 55 game win streak will go down in state history as one of the longest win streaks and will most likely stand for many years.  However, even Coach Frost knows that “somebody will break it eventually.”