HEDGESVILLE, W.Va – Hedgesville football and power football seem to have gone hand in hand over the years. That’s why when faced with a deep stable of running backs and an offensive line keen to open gaping holes in a defense, Eagle head coach Matt Faircloth decided to turn to the past.
From 1991 to 1997, former coach Ron Renner led Hedgesville to six playoff appearances in seven years with a Wing-T offensive attack that peaked in 1995 as the Eagles reached the Class AAA state championship game and running back Frank Aliveto claimed the Kennedy Award as the state’s best player.
While Faircloth won’t necessarily be implementing the same scheme that Renner did to that level of success, the idea is the same: run the opposition clean over.
“We know what we are. We found an identity of what we want to be and our guys up front are where we want to be with our running backs,” Faircloth said.
Faircloth envisions the backfield depth his team possesses being one of the things that will separate it from its opponents. Senior Jake Young has toted the mail frequently in recent seasons and while he will be counted on to lead the way, the Eagles have plenty of options to carry the ball.
“Jake’s been our workhorse now going on three years. We’ve got a sophomore in Chris Williams who’s going to be an animal over the next couple of years,” Faircloth said, “The good thing is with Jake, Dalton (Harper), Hayden Major, Cam Webb, Dustin Boley, Jacob Care, we can go for days in that backfield.
With senior Dalton Harper transitioning from quarterback to a swiss army knife role on both sides of the ball, the quarterback position is held firmly by sophomore Chaz Milburn. Much ballyhooed entering his freshman season a year ago, Faircloth says Milburn is even better since recovering from a shoulder injury that cut that campaign short.
“He looks better than he did before he got injured. Arm strength is probably better than it was. The biggest focus for him this offseason was getting him bigger and stronger and I think we got him up 17 pounds so any time you go up size like that, automatically your strength goes up,” Faircloth said.
On defense, first team all-state linebacker Aydin Fleming is now suiting up for West Virginia University and the Eagles will lean on several returners to make up for his record-setting production. That includes honorable mention all-stater Levi Faircloth and a cast of hungry returners.
“We don’t have one guy that’s going to do all that. We’re going to have two guys that go do that so we’re going to split that. 160 tackles, I need you to go get 60. I need you to go get 70. We return the other two leading tacklers we had with Levi and Jacob Care,” the elder Faircloth said.
Faircloth has seen this group of Eagles nearly from start to finish. There are 26 seniors on the roster for Hedgesville this season, many of whom the head coach guided on the field since they were in elementary school. He believes that they are ready to leave a legacy before their careers end.
“All of them have had varsity experience over the last three to four years. Out of that senior group, seven of them have played for us since they were freshmen so over time, they’ve become the leaders. I always say, you can’t take away game experience,” he said.
Hedgesville opens the season on August 30 against Rocktown (VA) in the first-ever home game for that school which opened in Harrisonburg, VA this month.
