Stretch run
Thomason continues to ‘push through’ for Christian Heritage
DALTON, Ga. — What does it say about a senior football player — an unquestioned leader on the team — who regularly shows up late for practice?
In Eli Thomason’s case, it says a great deal, just not what most would think.
While the Christian Heritage Lions are on the field stretching to prepare for practice, Thomason is doing the same thing. His prep, however, comes in the training room.
Thomason, one of Georgia’s most productive two-way contributors, has played the 2022 season with a torn meniscus in his left knee. The injury occurred in practice before the team’s first game, something that would cost most football players at least a few weeks.
For Thomason, however, it was just a new plot twist in the same old story after playing the previous two seasons with the same injury in the right knee.
“Eli is just a tough kid who wants to play football,” Christian Heritage coach Jay Poag said.
“He’s not very big, about 190 pounds, but he has a knack for making big plays and he’s extremely strong and fast. He’s also the most competitive and determined athlete we have.
“He’s had two surgeries on the other knee and then he tears the good one, but if you didn’t know it happened you could never tell by watching him play — and he never comes off the field unless we make him.”
That third surgery will have to wait because the Lions visit second-ranked Johnson County (11-0) in the second round of the GHSA Class A (Division II) playoffs Friday night.
Christian Heritage got there after a 4-6 regular season that was better than it looks and last week’s 37-6 win at 10th-ranked Greene County in which Thomason rushed for 214 yards and four touchdowns, pushing his season totals to 1,428 yards and 20 scores. He’s also the team’s leading receiver with 18 catches for 453 yards and six touchdowns.
Defensively, the linebacker leads the Lions with 108 tackles, 11 for loss, and four caused fumbles.
Who needs two good knees? “I try not to think about it,” Thomason said. “I just push through. Our trainer, before every practice, we work on it to really get it stretched out. It’s been something I can push through and just deal with it afterward.”
Thomason and the Lions have also dealt with disappointment this season, though some of the struggles were inevitable against a schedule that included eight playoff teams — five of them either region champions or runners-up — and more than 4,000 miles of travel.
“We’ve been to Nashville, we’ve been to Asheville and most places in between,” laughed Poag, whose team was guaranteed a playoff berth coming from Region 7, which has just three teams.
“Knowing we were going to make the playoffs certainly affected the way we scheduled. We scheduled way up, and we knew it was going to be difficult.”
The Lions led or were within one score in the fourth quarter in four of their six losses. Though battle tested, the team still had to get over the frustration of a sub-.500 regular season, where Thomason and a large senior class made the difference.
“We felt as coaches that if we could stay healthy, we could make some noise in the playoffs,” Poag said. “These are schools our size we’re playing now. It was certainly frustrating, but we kept a positive attitude throughout. Having 16 seniors helped get through that.”
Confidence is high after last week’s rout at Greene County, though the task gets much tougher Friday at Johnson County, where senior running back Germivy Tucker recently broke Herschel Walker’s program record for career rushing yards and has 2,373 yards and 30 touchdowns this season.
“We’ve faced great teams all year,” Thomason said. “Last week proved what we can do. There’s no reason we can’t do it again.”
“He’s not very big, about 190 pounds, but he has a knack for making big plays and he’s extremely strong and fast. He’s also the most competitive and determined athlete we have.”
— CHRISTIAN HERITAGE COACH JAY POAG