The resurrection of Horizon Christian's football program continues to progress way ahead of schedule.
Last year, the Hawks of Tualatin outpaced their own plans by returning with a JV schedule. This year – under the guidance of former Wells, North Marion and Riverdale coach Keith Bennett -- they will play their first varsity season since 2017 as members of 3A Special District 1.
“We're excited to have football back, that's for sure,” said Bennett, who previously assisted at Horizon Christian under George Crace from 2011 to 2015.
When Bennett returned to Horizon Christian last year, the original plan was for him to lay the groundwork and ease into a JV schedule this season. But when 31 players turned out last year, the school opted to get a jump-start.
“It definitely accelerated things,” Bennett said. “Had we known that that many kids were going to come out, we probably would've tried to play a varsity schedule last year. It was just a little too late in the game for the OSAA for that to happen.”
The Hawks are in capable hands with Bennett. He was the defensive coordinator for Amity's 3A title teams in 2003 and 2009 and had a successful five-year run at 6A Wells (2020-24), going 24-20 and winning Portland Interscholastic League titles in 2023 and 2024.
Horizon Christian initially hired Bennett in 2019 to restore the program, but when it didn't take root, he moved on to Wells. This go-around, though, the signs are much more positive.
In early 2025, Bennett got things started by throwing around a football during lunch time. It began with a handful of students and just kept growing.
“The next thing you know we've got 15 kids coming out and playing two-hand touch football during lunch,” Bennett said. “We kind of parlayed that into a spring practice or two. We had several soccer kids inform the administration they'd rather play football in the fall. That kind of pushed us up and over.”
During training camp last year, Bennett's challenge was to get them up to speed on the game.
“A lot of the kids had never played football before,” he said. “The first practice consisted of, 'This is a football. These are hashmarks,' that type of thing.”
As they warmed up for the season-opening jamboree at Wells last year, Bennett recalled his players being “awestruck” by the atmosphere of the lights, crowd and music.
“I've never seen a group of individuals so nervous,” he said. “Right in the middle of warm-ups, we had to stop and just do little breathing exercises for two minutes just to try to calm the kids down. It was all brand new to them.”
Horizon Christian not only was able to compete last season, but the Hawks finished with a 6-2 record. One of the highlights was their homecoming game, a 38-30 loss to Tualatin's JV2 team played before a crowd of more than 1,000. They had the ball late with a chance to score but fell short.
“It was an exciting game,” Bennett said. “Several community members came up and said, 'Oh my gosh, we had no idea this is what football could bring to our community.'
“We tried to schedule as many games on Friday nights to create that Friday night lights type of event, just so our kids could see what that was like.”
The Hawks expect to have 35-38 players this season. They bring back about half of their starters, including seniors Blake Jones and Hunter Woody, standouts at running back and linebacker, and junior tight end/defensive end Kingston Andersen, who played his freshman year at 5A Wilsonville.
Bennett will coach the defense and Gavin Frownfelter, who played at Wells under Bennett, will run the offense. The team will employ the Guardian-T, a hybrid of the power-T and wing-T that was so successful at Wells.
“It worked really well there,” Bennett said. “We keep fine-tuning it every year. I think it's just going to get bigger and better.”
Excitement is running high for the Hawks, who will play on brand new artificial turf at their stadium. Their daunting district schedule includes historically strong programs such as Dayton, Santiam Christian and Amity, even if those teams' reputations are lost on the Hawks.
“The nice thing is, they don't know,” Bennett said. “I think that's actually a positive. From game to game, they really don't know.”
jerryu@osaa.org
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