History will be made this evening as the Faith Christian Academy Lions football team will play its first-ever 11-man game under the lights as it travels to Marietta to face the Crown Athletics Knights junior varsity squad.

Kickoff for the FCA season-finale is set for 5:30 p.m.

FCA (3-3) has played 8-man football since its inception in 2008, so this is new territory for the Lions. Coach Jim McClelland Jr. said his team welcomes the challenge.

“The guys who have shown up for practice this week are really excited to play 11-man football,” he said. “I’m looking forward to seeing the guys get a taste of regular football. I told them that they need to have fun out there and soak it all in.”

McClelland said with the team’s small numbers coupled with the fact they'll be playing both ways, it’s possible they may run out of gas in the fourth quarter. All he can hope for is that the Lions can stay close with Crown and to do that, he has implemented something that’s never been done at FCA: Field goals.

“Vincent Blackmon has booted a 45-yarder in practice and Markus Gilbert can kick close to that distance as well,” McClelland said. “Any way we can put points on the board is fine by me.”

McClelland said he’s going to go with a basic offense against Crown, rolling with the Wishbone and a little bit of the Triple Option. McClelland said the Triple Option probably won’t be in play as much because he doesn’t want his quarterbacks — starter Nick Preston and backup Braden Stahl — to get hurt in the game.

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New Creation Christian Crusaders (4-1, 3-0 ICSGA South) at Griffin Christian Crusaders (1-7, 0-3 ICSGA South): It will be a joust between Crusaders tonight as the homestanding Griffin Christian Crusaders play their season-finale against first-place New Creation Christian Academy at Nix Field at 7:30 p.m.

Unfortunately for GC, the game won’t have playoff implications because they lost a tiebreaker to Creekside Christian with their 20-19 loss but GC head coach Bobby Brogdon said his guys will play hard to the final horn in their last game of 2012.

“We will give it all we’ve got against NCC. We’ll have Donovan Adams back from his concussion so that should help us in the backfield,” said Brogdon. “Our guys will compete, that’s for sure.”

Several of the Crusaders said they wanted to win this game for assistant coach Randy Wilson, who will be retiring after the game.

“Coach Wilson’s dad passed away last Friday before the Crown game and he stuck with us anyway,” said C.J. Lewis.

“Because he did that, we definitely want to win this one for him,” said Aaron McCray.

GC lineman Noah Peacock and cornerback Darien Vinson both said execution is key to get a victory.

“We also must hit them hard,” Vinson said.

Skipstone Academy played its season-finale last week against Augusta Prep.