Donovan Shepard, Cardinal Gibbons bring an NC high school football title full circle
Donovan Shepard completed his Cardinal Gibbons Raleigh football journey as a state champion.
Shepard entered Saturday’s N.C. 4A state final — in which the Crusaders prevailed 14-2 over Julius L. Chambers of Charlotte — as the NCHSAA single-game rushing yardage record holder. In his final game, Shepard eclipsed 100 rushing yards for the 10th time this season, and set a new school single-season record with more than 2,100 yards this fall.
Shepard’s journey brought Cardinal Gibbons football full circle in multiple ways.
Shepard, before matriculating at the Raleigh Catholic high school, graduated from Cathedral School on Hillsborough Street. Cathedral School is located where Cardinal Gibbons, then known as Cathedral Latin, was housed when the school had its first football program during the 1940s.
Shepard set his NCHSAA mark — 539 yards on 19 carries — on October 22 at Athens Drive. When Cardinal Gibbons rejuvenated its football program in 1992, the Crusaders — without a gridiron field on its campus off Western Boulevard — played “home” games in Athens Drive’s Peter Hines Williams Stadium, which preceded the school’s current competition venue.
Cardinal Gibbons won its first state championship in N.C. State’s Carter-Finley Stadium. Once during the 1990s, the Crusaders played one “home” football game on the field inside N.C. State’s Paul H. Derr Track.
For Shepard and his teammates, this fall, time and again, road trips — including a final game-day walk from Cardinal Gibbons’ Edwards Mill Road campus to Carter-Finley Stadium, and to a historic state championship — led home.
HISTORIC, PROGRESSIVE PEDIGREE
Cardinal Gibbons won its first football state championship by distinguishing itself among its sport’s history and evolution.
The Crusaders’ 14-2 overall record cemented the school’s highest single season wins total, and matched the state final’s score. Among these wins are five landmark stories.
Cardinal Gibbons won 30-22 at Richmond on September 3. The Raiders, who completed their 50th gridiron season this fall, have won seven state championships in the largest classification — tied for the most with Independence of Charlotte in state history.
A week later, the Crusaders topped visiting Wake Forest 33-9. The Cougars — the only other NCHSAA school from Wake County with a 21st-century state championship — won three consecutive 4AA state championships from 2016-18.
On October 15, Cardinal Gibbons won 44-0 at Broughton — the last Raleigh-based school to win a NCHSAA state championship (1970) before the Crusaders’ triumph. Broughton, like Cardinal Gibbons, won its state championship in Carter-Finley Stadium.
Cardinal Gibbons’ 36-28 state semifinal win over visiting Rolesville on Dec. 3 made a statement in the first season without subdivided classification playoffs brackets since 2002. The Crusaders and Rams were last spring’s 4A and 4AA state runners-up, respectively.
Cardinal Gibbons’ state final win over Chambers reversed the schools’ August 20 season opener outcome — a 35-29 Chambers win. The Crusaders became just the second team to dethrone a Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools team defending a largest classification state championship. In 2007 — 14 years ago — New Bern defeated Independence 28-17 to end the latter school’s run of seven straight state championships.