Covenant Day Cultivates Their Return to the State Championship

CHARLOTTE, NC – The Covenant Day Lions might have been the biggest surprise in the NCISAA.

Since Head Coach Pete McSparin took over in 2019, the Lions had not seen a winning season until last year, when they reached their first state championship game as a program.

“The one thing that I think was to our advantage last year is we caught some people off guard. We played some teams that we really kind of surprised and we are not gonna surprise anybody this year, and we don’t really have, our schedule has improved, we are playing a lot stronger teams so we are not gonna sneak up on anyone this year,” said Mike Hawks, the defensive coordinator for the Lions.

While they came up short, they learned valuable lessons to push them forward as they try to claim what was just out of reach.

“Hard work pays off. That offseason, we were grinding every day, seniors were great leaders, and we put the work in in the weight room and on the field,” said junior cornerback Tyler Dennison.

“Communicating, being vocal with the team, having high energy, getting everyone to come to practice and be hungry in practice and participate as hard as you can,” said Stephen Sheubert, a senior middle linebacker.

The current upperclassmen want to emulate the leaders that took them so far last season, as they know they wont take anyone by surprise this season. But while they lost that anonymity, they gained more support from the community than they ever dreamed of.

“Well it was relatively new because we hadn’t been very good and all of a sudden we won a couple of games and people are starting to get excited and as that grew we started to play in front of some pretty big crowds for a school our size,” said Hawks.