The Griffin Christian Crusaders won a home football game for the first time in nearly two years and the smiles on the faces of everyone involved last week was priceless. But the work isn’t finished. Now they’ve got to take their show on the road and try to beat Dominion Christian Knights in non-league action tonight at 7:30 p.m.

Ironically, GC’s last road win was a 34-12 win at Dominion, located in Marietta, back in Nov. 2010.

“Everyone’s feeling good about the win,” Crusaders head coach Bobby Brogdon said. “We plan to keep it going.”

The motto for this season may turn out like a line from the 80’s movie Top Gun -- “I feel the need for speed.” The 2012 Crusaders (1-0) once again have speed in the backfield, which hasn’t been seen around campus since Anthony Lewis and Trey Epperson tied up their cleats a few years ago. The speed of new Crusader Donavan Adams, a junior, and sophomore C.J. Lewis was too much for Central Fellowship to handle and other teams may have a hard time stopping the tandem as well. And they will receive another backfield weapon in another week when junior tailback Sean Montgomery, a transfer from Spalding High, recovers from his recent surgery.

Brogdon said the Crusaders will once again feature the toss sweep to the tailbacks and “tweak a few things here and there” for tonight’s game against the Knights (0-1). Dominion dropped its season opener last week to Crown, 48-28.

While last Friday’s shutout win was great, the Crusaders must shore up some things if they expect to keep the party going all year. The kicking game was dismal in the win over Central Fellowship, especially on the extra point attempt in the first quarter. In fact, the Crusaders didn’t even attempt another PAT the rest of the game, deciding instead to run senior Rusty Duffee for 2-point conversions after their final three scores. Also, while Lewis ran very well (team-leading 118 yards rushing), he also fumbled twice and quarterback Dillan Brogdon threw two interceptions along with his touchdown pass and TD run.

“Coach [Randy] Wilson wants Dillan to roll out and throw on the run -- I personally think he should focus more on defense, but coach thinks he does a good job as the starting QB. He’s just got to be more careful throwing the ball,” coach Brogdon said. “As for C.J., we’ve had him walking with a football all week so he can eliminate fumbling.”

Skipstone Academy (0-3 overall, 0-1 GFC East) at Georgia Force (2-0, 0-0):

Skipstone Academy head coach Dan Salvador was disappointed with the Warriors‘ third loss of the season last week -- the team only lost 3 games all of last season -- but he did stress there were some positives from the setback. The team finally scored its first points of the season and on defense, they made some plays. It’s just getting the offense in gear that is the challenge for Skipstone as it travels to Sugar Hill, Ga. to play the Georgia Force in Glory For Christ East action tonight at 7:30 p.m. It is the GFC East opener for the Force.

“Georgia Force made it to the GFC league semifinals in 2011 and they will be tough. I believe we’ll have a good plan against them,” Salvador said. “We’ve been a bit sloppy these last two weeks. Remember, we’ve got a lot of new guys on the team and it’s about gelling as a group. I know we can turn this thing around.”

The good news for Skipstone is that junior tailback Jamiro Winston will return to the lineup tonight after fully recovering from his knee injury. Winston, who led the Warriors in touchdowns last year, arrives just in time as sophomore tailback Christian Stewart is out with a shoulder injury. The Warriors also plan to use new player Anthony Peavy, who previously played at Faith Christian Academy.

So far this season, the stars of the Skipstone show have been senior Dave Quashi and freshman Luke Mayben. Both players have responded well wherever Salvador and the coaching staff have placed them, either on offense or defense.

FCA off:

Faith Christian Academy (0-1) has a lot of work to do this season as evidenced by their 62-point drubbing at the hands of Shiloh Hills last week. The Lions are off this week so hopefully two weeks of practice will prepare them for the road contest at KingsWay Academy on Sept. 7.

“This week, we’re going back to the basics. We have got to improve our tackling and our ball control,” said Lions coach Jim McClelland Jr. “The coaching staff did something different - we wanted input from the guys about how the Shiloh Hills game went and they looked at it the same way we coaches did. That’s a good sign and hopefully they will learn from this loss.”

McClelland said he was impressed with the Lions’ fight last week, especially after being down 56-8 at halftime.

“It was nice to see that they did not give up. They kept their heads about them,” he said. “We did a lot better the second half and that just showed our character.”