“I give a lot of credit to our coaches,” Domsitz said. “They’ve done a great job of moving the kids along.”
Alter moved up the playoff rankings each week. The Knights’ only other loss was to undefeated and GCL-Coed champion Hamilton Badin. And that score was 29-24. Otherwise, the Knights stacked wins and closed the regular season at 7-3 and 4-1 in the league with a 21-14 victory over rival Chaminade Julienne, which was also much improved this season. That win was further proof the Knights were better because they lost to CJ 49-28 last season.
Offseason conditioning and weightlifting and a season of experience behind them made a huge difference.
“We’re a much stronger, quicker football team, more aggressive football team than we were a year ago,” Domsitz said. “That’s not a slap at last year’s seniors because there were only six or seven of those kids. There were teams that could overpower us last year. That doesn’t happen quite as much this year. We’re still not a big football team, but we are stronger.”
The fourth-seeded Knights (8-3) face a great challenge at 7 p.m. Friday at Monroe High School against top-seeded Clinton-Massie (12-0), which won the state title in 2021 and excels with a power running game. The winner will play for the regional title next Friday against the winner of No. 7 Springfield Shawnee and No. 6 Cincinnati Wyoming.
“They do a great job of blocking, and they’ve been good blockers over the years.,” Domsitz said. “They’re pretty consistent on what they do and how well they do it. They’re well coached. Their defense is aggressive. It’s not the biggest defense we’ve seen, but certainly they’re going to line up and it’s going to be a battle.”
The Knights’ season has come together around a stingy defense, good quarterback play and a running game that has evolved into a two-back attack.
Defensively, the Knights have four shutouts, including a late-season one against Fenwick and a first-round blanking of Roger Bacon. Then they beat Cincinnati Indian Hill 31-6 last week.
“They really have been able to keep us in some ballgames until the offense got rolling,” Domsitz said.
Junior quarterback Gavin Conner set the school career passing yards record in the win over Bacon. For a coach who prefers to run the football, Conner has thrown for 1,304 yards, 11 touchdowns and only two interceptions. He has also rushed for 424 yards. Domsitz said Conner’s fundamentals, footwork, awareness and decision-making are better this year.
“He’s where we would hope he would be at this point in terms of being able to handle our offense,” Domsitz said. “I think the kids have a lot of confidence in him. He still makes some mistakes as any quarterback does. But there seems to be a different level of maturity with him this year that serves him and us well.”
Noah Jones, a sophomore, has been the Knights’ go-to rusher with 163 carries, 965 yards and 15 touchdowns. But fellow sophomore Rod Jones has emerged as a second threat. He had eight carries and 71 yards and a touchdown against Bacon and was 12 for 124 and a touchdown against Indian Hill.
“We’ve been talking to him about looking for the crease, hit the hole, run hard protect the football, and it seems all becoming together for him,” Domsitz said. “He’s a threat.”
The Knights are trying to win a third-round game for the first time since 2020 when they reached the Division III state semifinals.
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