Team of the Week: Perfect storm for Laney as they prepare to face Hoggard

WILMINGTON, N.C. (WWAY) — Things started slow for Buccaneer football this season, but things are looking promising ahead of their biggest test yet.

Laney is getting ready to visit rival Hoggard on Friday. While the Vikings are the only undefeated team in the Carolina Coast, the Bucs are coming off back-to-back wins as well as a bye week to give them more time to prepare for their cross-town foe.

Head Coach Steve Brooks that’s a great way to lead up to a pivotal contest.

“It’s great momentum, and we needed all the momentum we can get playing a great Hoggard team,” Brooks said. “They’re absolutely so well coached and play so hard. It was definitely a week that we needed to fix and work on things with Laney, but great momentum for sure.”

(Photo: Colton Emswiler/WWAY)

Brooks is in his first year with the program, and the players say they’ve finally figured things out and are hitting their stride compared to how the season began.

“The team’s improved tremendously, I believe, since week one,” senior quarterback Ryan Gallagher said. “On offense, we clicked. As a whole, our defense has been playing well all season. I’m proud of those guys on defense. We’re getting well prepared for what they’re doing. We’re just excited to go out there and play a football game against a really good team.”

(Photo: Colton Emswiler/WWAY)

Laney has not beaten Hoggard since 2010, and Brooks says the entire playbook will be open on Friday night.

“All of it, for sure,” Brooks said. “Things that we probably haven’t done all year, we’ll do. At this time of the year, we’re just trying to make sure that the stuff that we have on the script, we want to be perfect at it. We got to play a perfect game.”