5th Quarter Season Preview: Brunswick County

BRUNSWICK COUNTY, NC (WWAY) — Let’s start off with the best team record wise last season in Brunswick County, The West Brunswick Trojans. This was a team last year that was undefeated in the Mideastern Conference through 9 weeks, including the upset victory over New Hanover at home. But this is a very different team coming into 2017. There will be no Big Bubba McCray lining up in the backfield for the Trojans this season.

“To be the offensive player of the year in this league was pretty special,” Trojans Coach Kelley Williamson said. “He’s a special kid. But we have some kids that can step up and run the football for us, a couple that didn’t run it last year because of Bubba. But we’ll be fine there.”

8 guys return on defense as well as much of their offensive line, but the success this season is based on one thing.

“We’ve got to stay healthy, we can’t get anybody hurt,” Williamson said. “We have to play hard and get after it, and play better defense. We didn’t play very good defense last year and gave up to many points.”

Heading East to Boiling Spring Lakes now where the Cougars did not have the season like the Trojans did. The team won the first game of the season and did not win again. But don’t tell Head Coach Rocky Lewis that. He’s expecting a much more competitive Cougar team this year.

“We’re expecting good things,” Lewis said. “We’ve got a veteran offensive line and we’ve got a good senior group that worked hard. We’re really happy with our results in the weight room so we have high expectations.”

Larry Brock is coaching the offensive line over at South but his former team was the North Brunswick Scorpions.

The team had a winning record last season, but they now have a new head coach. Darren Willis takes over the team after 12 years working with the Scorpion program and brings back every assistant coach with him. That continuity is key considering who left on the field.

“We have a really young team,” Willis said. “We graduated 20 seniors last year. We have about 20 sophomores up right now that are all pretty good athletes. They’re learning fast and I have a real good staff to work with them so we have high expectations even though they’re young.”

It seems high expectations is the theme in Brunswick County. Opening day for those expectations inch closer and closer daily. They’ll all be in the BB&T Jamboree this Friday at Legion Stadium.