Concord won perhaps the biggest game in school history Friday night, stunning arch-rival Kannapolis 20-7 in a second-round 3A state playoff game at Memorial Stadium. Concord faces cross-county rival Northwest Cabarrus next week.

The Concord win came just 14 days after a crippled crew of Wonders edged the Spiders 10-7 in their own house. Now healthy, the Wonders were supposed to dominate the rematch.

But Lee was also supposed to win at Gettysburg and Dewey was supposed to beat Truman.

Wonder head coach Bruce Hardin could only shake his head and ask, “Can we play any worse?”

It was a fair question.

That’s why the word on the street in Kannapolis today will be that the Wonders (12-1) beat themselves.

There will be some grounds for that line of thinking. The Wonders made two brutal and totally uncharacteristic turnovers that placed them in a quick 14-0 hole.

But it would be wrong for the third-seeded Wonders’ mistakes to take anything away from the performance of coach E. Z. Smith’s Spiders.

The 11th-seeded Spiders (9-4) came into a hostile environment, stayed tough mentally and physically for 48 minutes and put together a near-perfect ballgame to eradicate a four-game losing streak to their least-favorite neighbors.

“They said all week they were going to take it to us,” said Hardin. “They did.”

Smith takes tons of heat for not being able to beat the Wonders in big games, but this time his squad came through. Smith had lost playoff battles to the Wonders in 1991 and 1997, and a for-all-the-marbles regular season clash in 1995.

“They had the psychological edge,” said a subdued Hardin, who lost for only the 24th time in 11 seasons in Kannapolis. “It’s tough to play them just two weeks apart.”

“You have to give credit to E.Z. and his staff,” added Wonder defensive coordinator Bill Wightman, who coached his final game for the Wonders. “My hat is off to them. They were the better team tonight. Concord was well prepared to play, and they jumped on us.”

The jumping started just five seconds into the game when Kannapolis’ Antonio McClure couldn’t handle the opening kickoff. Concord’s Andy Boyd came out of a pileup at the Wonder 33, punching the air and holding the ball aloft for all the world to see.

That play gave the Spiders the momentum. They never gave it back.

“And momentum,” said Wightman sadly, “is everything in the game of football.”

The Wonder defense nearly held, but on fourth-and-3 at the Kannapolis 13, Concord ran a sweet reverse, with QBJamel Jackson handing to Mack Johnson, who outraced a badly fooled Wonder defense for a 7-0 lead.

Kannapolis picked up only one first down on its next possession, then had a punt blocked by Concord’s Scott McCarthy.

That didn’t lead to points, but it got the idea running through Kannapolis heads that on this, of all nights, nothing would go right.

Another break came late in the first quarter when Marcus Rivens fumbled a punt at the Wonder 6.

Two plays later, Jackson scored unopposed after a splendid fake to the fullback. Concord led 14-0.

The first half was exasperating for the Wonders, who moved into Concord territory on all three of their non-fumbling possessions, but came away empty.

One Wonder push reached the Spider 15, but a holding penalty doomed the drive.

“We moved the ball,” said quarterback Justin Hardin. “But penalties killed our momentum.”

“We got it down there, we had to put it in,” said Wightman.

Wonder linebackers tried to turn things around on the first series of the second half.

Johnson was crushed by Josh Lee, thrown back by Jason Brown and punished by Rivens on three successive carries for losses.

On their first possession of the half, the Wonders marched to Concord territory once more, as the capacity crowd shrieked support.

The chance to break through came on third-and-15 at the Spider 36, but Justin Hardin overthrew an open Ryan Craft, who had beaten Johnson down the middle.

After that, Concord realized that the clock, as much as the Wonders, was the enemy. The Spiders chewed away at it as Wonder fans chewed their fingernails.

Finally, with 8:41 remaining in the game, Kannapolis workhorse Marcello Stanback finished off a 73-yard grind to make it 14-7.

Now, Wonder fans were thinking that the first half was just a bad dream. There was still time to salvage the game with a big defensive stop and one more Justin Hardin-engineered drive.

But the big stop never came. On second-and-7 at the Concord 40, with 6:35 remaining, the Wonders blitzed. Johnson hit a seam and ripped off a 33-yard run that ripped the heart from the Wonders.

“We gambled and lost,” sighed Wightman. “We were hoping for a big hit to force a turnover. We were trying to make something happen, But we guessed wrong.”

Four plays after Johnson’s burst, Jackson ran through tacklers for a stunning 17-yard touchdown.

Jackson’s electrifying run boosted the lead to 20-7. There were five minutes left, but this one was clearly over.

“You don’t get Kannapolis down two scores often,” said Smith. “It was a nice feeling.”

And as disappointed Wonder fans began streaming from Memorial Stadium, tears of disappointment began streaming down the faces of emotionally spent Wonder seniors.

There were more tears at the 50-yard line shortly after the colossal contest.

That’s where Smith, his son, E.Z. IV, a stalwart defensive lineman, and daughter Audrey Lee, who was a fine basketball player at Concord, gathered for a marathon family hug and smiled for the flashing cameras of dozens of delirious fans attired in black and gold.

For Wonder fans that family portrait was the most painful picture imaginable.