May 13, 2021
By: Dwayne Page
Eli Cross is a champion!
The former DCHS football standout and his teammates at Lindsey Wilson College in Columbia, Kentucky are celebrating their first NAIA National Championship.
The Blue Raiders defeated Northwestern (Iowa) 45-13 at Grambling State University in Louisiana in the title game Monday night, May 10 completing an undefeated spring football season at 11-0 including the Mid-South Conference Championship
Cross, a two year All-Conference player, is a starting left tackle on the offensive line for the Blue Raiders of Lindsey Wilson.
“It hasn’t really sunk in completely yet,” said Cross when asked about his team’s winning the national title.
In every game, the Blue Raiders beat their opponents this season by at least 21 points. Cross said the team was so dominant, winning the national championship wasn’t too surprising.
“We had a really good team this year. We just killed everybody we played during the season and we blew them out of the water in the championship game too. I was really confident we would win it all because we have played really good all season. Our coach Chris Oliver is awesome too. He has been with the program since it started in 2010,” said Cross
Cross, a 2017 DCHS graduate, has already completed four years of college at Lindsey Wilson and earned a business administration degree with an emphasis in management and a minor in psychology. He plans to further his studies at Lindsey Wilson working toward a Masters Degree. Because of his having been redshirted as a freshman and this season not counting against his eligibility, Cross, son of Tony and Shelly Cross of Smithville, plans to continue his collegiate football career for two more seasons at Lindsey Wilson.
After college, Cross said right now he would like to become a certified teacher and high school football coach somewhere.
The NAIA, a college athletics association separate from the NCAA with nearly 100 schools that participate in football, postponed its fall 2020 football season to this spring due to the coronavirus pandemic.
In the national title game Monday night, LWC jumped out to a 17-0 lead and then coasted for the win. Quarterback Cameron Dukes, the 2020 Mid-South Conference Male Student-Athlete of the Year, led the Blue Raiders by completing 18-of-24 passes for 157 yards and also added three rushing touchdowns.
It marked the school’s first-ever NAIA championship. The program’s previous best postseason run came in 2019, when it reached the national semifinals. LWC went 5-6 in its first re-launched season in 2010, and then followed it up by going 7-3 and 3-8 in 2011 and 2012. Since then, it has posted eight-straight winning seasons.
When the school announced that football would return to campus in 2010, it marked the first time since 1935 that the school would field a football team.