Fort Mill Football · Game 2, 2026
Redemption in the Rain
Fort Mill
38
FINAL
Catawba Ridge
17
Fort Mill Football · Game 2, 2026
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Catawba Ridge has owned this series lately. Two meetings a year ago — both at CR, both close — and both went the Copperheads' way, including a playoff exit that still stung heading into this one. FM's senior quarterback took a hard hit late in that game, the kind some around the program still call dirty, and it knocked him out for good. That was pretty much the ballgame, and the season, right there.
Fort Mill's 5-6 mark last year under Rob Mcneely was progress — the program's best stretch in a while — but it was still a losing record, and not many people around town figured Fort Mill was close to competing with Catawba Ridge. The JV team told a different story: 9-0 a year ago, including a 45-0 blowout of CR's JV. The talent was there. It just hadn't shown up on Friday nights against this opponent yet. Storms delayed kickoff 25 minutes — 7:55 instead of 7:30 — but the rain stayed light. Whatever was about to happen wasn't going to be about the weather.
CR won the toss and deferred. Fort Mill's opening possession stalled and the Yellow Jackets turned it over on downs at their own 40 — and Catawba Ridge made them pay, driving in for a 39-yard field goal. 3-0 CR, right on script for a team that's owned this matchup.
Fort Mill answered immediately. The Yellow Jackets housed the ensuing kickoff deep into Copperheads territory to the 39, and moments later quarterback Harper Love found Jameson Terrell for a 35-yard touchdown strike. Noah Hardy's PAT was good. 7-3 Fort Mill leads after one — a lead they wouldn't give up the rest of the night.
After a stretch of traded possessions, Broden Mitcheson bulled his way in from a yard out — the first of three touchdowns on the night for him. A botched PAT snap kept it at 13-3, but the tone was set. Fort Mill's defense picked off a Catawba Ridge pass at the Copperheads' 25 — and on the ensuing drive, Love was sacked and fumbled, popped hard behind the line. Lucky bounce: Fort Mill recovered its own football.
Facing a long 3rd down, the staff didn't play it safe — Love found Terrell again, this time on a 40-yard bomb that pushed the lead to 20-3. Catawba Ridge answered right back, though, capping their next drive with a 21-yard touchdown pass to cut it to 20-10 with under two minutes left in the half — a reminder this CR team could still turn a game in a hurry.
Halftime came and went in a blur — rain-delay math, maybe. Catawba Ridge opened the third looking shaky, nearly throwing a pick before Fort Mill's defense forced a stop anyway. FM's own drive stalled at midfield and they had to punt it back — but a muffed CR return rolled into the end zone, ruled a touchback instead of the safety it looked like for a second. Small break, CR survives.
From there, though, the game tilted for good. Fort Mill's defense smothered every CR snap, and offensively the Yellow Jackets leaned all the way into Mitcheson — what were 1- and 2-yard grinds started popping for 5, 8, sometimes double digits, and Catawba Ridge started looking exhausted, flags piling up in Fort Mill's favor. Another deep shot connected, setting up Mitcheson's second touchdown of the night — a 1-yard plunge. 27-10 Fort Mill, with two minutes left in the third.
Catawba Ridge couldn't answer. A shaky punt snap gave Fort Mill's defense a stop on 4th down, but the offense stalled in the red zone and had to settle for a 25-yard Noah Hardy field goal: 30-10 with 10:48 left. CR threw another interception, and for a second it looked like this one might get out of hand fast — until Fort Mill gave a possession right back with a fumble of their own. Didn't matter.
CR went three-and-out again, and Fort Mill drove the length of the field to let Mitcheson finish the job: a 2-yard dive for his third touchdown of the night. Andrew Kowalski punched in the two-point conversion, clawing back the point they'd fumbled away in the second quarter. 38-10. Catawba Ridge wasn't ready to fold completely, answering with one last rushing touchdown to make the final respectable: 38-17, Fort Mill.
Head coach doused in the water bucket before the handshake line — the kind of celebration a program waits years for. Both teams met at their own ends of the field afterward to pray, a quieter moment after 48 minutes that finally tipped Fort Mill's way against a rival that's owned this series.
For a program that hadn't given the town much reason to expect this — Broden Mitcheson and the Yellow Jackets just did.
Every photo from the game, in order —