Benedictine went on the road and gave Buford, the No. 1 ranked team in Class 6A by the AJC, all it could handle before the Wolves scored late to pull off a 29-28 non-region victory.
Buford quarterback Dayton Raiola connected with Ethan Ervin on a 27-yard scoring pass with 1:05 left and then Kenyon Rivera ran in a two-point conversion for the go-ahead score for Buford.
Raiola hit Jordan Allen with an 8-yard scoring pass, and Buford (1-1) converted another 2-point conversion to tie the game at 21 with 9:06 left. Benedictine quarterback Stephen Cannon had a strong showing. The junior's 11-yard touchdown run with 4:23 left put the Cadets up 28-21, but BC couldn't put things away. Cannon added a touchdown on a quarterback sneak in the second half. Trailing 10-0 in the first quarter, BC rallied as Cannon hit Bubba Frazier over the middle for a 33-yard score to cut the lead to 10-7 with 2:43 left in the first quarter. Then BC junior defensive back Micah Williams, who missed the season opening loss to Rabun Gap with turf toe, picked off Raiola and took it back for a 52-yard touchdown as BC went up 14-10 with 1:24 left in the quarter.
"I was extremely proud of the boys, they played unbelievably hard," BC Coach Danny Britt said. "They kept fighting and got stronger as the game went on. For us to play a perennial national power at their place in front of a huge crowd like that showed me a lot. The moment wasn't too big for them."
