Gardner – PikeView Head Coach Jason Spears has had an unconventional start to his coaching career. In 2019 he experienced the lows of being a rookie head coach, but received little relief in his second year at the helm.
With remote learning in place and a spread out school district, the numbers dwindled to the point where he had only 15 players by the end of the 2020 season.
This year the outlook is more positive.
“I truly believe we’ve got something good going on this year,” Spears said. “My first two years – I was getting my feet wet the first year and the second year we had to deal with COVID and things like that. We had low numbers, I mean we finished the season with 15 players but at the same time the kids finished a 10-game season. These kids – some of them live 30 or 45 minutes away from the school and it’s hard for them to get to school so they rely on us being in school to be able to play football.
“But the kids have embraced football. They’ve been at it since February in the weight room and that three-week period the WVSSAC gave us has been great and awesome. We had over 40 kids here and things are moving and we’re building the culture here. We’re a brotherhood and everything is looking good so far.”
Having normalcy ripped away from them a year ago appears to have paid off. Attendance was great during the summer workouts and weight room sessions and interest has drummed up to the point players who hadn’t played the sports in several years are trying their hands at it.
“Their attitude is like a complete 180,” Spears said. “It’s like they’re embracing the workouts, embracing the practices and having fun with it. It’s been very competitive out here too. I’ve seen a lot of good freshmen coming up that have an opportunity to play varsity. Peyton Grier has stepped up as a quarterback. He was my wide receiver last year but he put in a lot of hard work. Adding players like Nathan Riffe, who hasn’t played football in a few years, helps at wide receiver. He’s got great hands and they finally realized they’re good at this sport.”
Riffe and Grier are just two of the players Spears is excited about returning. Many of the Panthers have taken their lumps over the last two years, but have learned from those experiences.
“One good thing about the last couple of years is the players we’re returning,” Spears said. “We’re returning Dylan Blake who’s a senior this year. He’s taken over the leadership role on both sides of the ball. I mean he is a huge weapon as a wide receiver. But on my offensive line Chris Harmon and Marcus Matney have taken that leadership role and they’re both juniors. But they have built a family there. We also picked up Amiliyon Singleton. He’s a transfer from Princeton and he hasn’t played football in forever but he’s done a great job in the backfield but we have quite a bit of freshmen. Braydon Dalton in the slot, he’s embraced that because he was a quarterback in the middle school but there’s a lot of great kids that are going to help us. We’re going to be able to sub in and sub out to give people breaks unlike last year. I’ve seen a lot of kids step up and surprised and a lot of kids that haven’t played football in forever come in and do well.”
With more players comes the ability to do more. The Panthers made some changes on their staff, leading to some schematic changes as well. As a result the team put together a new playbook that they’ve been able to effectively install.
“We’re going to change it up,” Spears said. “We’re going to still be 50/50 but we’ve switched around some things. Coach (Ben) Nester is now the defensive coordinator and he does a great job with the defense and his energy matches a defensive coach. Josh Blankenship is now the offensive coordinator. We have been putting a playbook together since February and having a summer where we can actually work on it has been great. It’s a run first game, but we’ll throw the ball a little bit. We’ve got a lot of speed we can utilize. We’re going to be a faster paced team this year.”
While naturally the goal is to make a playoff run, Spears knows there are steps to achieve that. As such instilling confidence is the next goal on his list as he steers the Panthers to what he hopes is a successful rebuild.
“Our thing now is to make them believe,” Spears said. “We put ‘Make ’em believe’ on the backs of all our t-shirts and things like that. Our biggest thing is competing and making them believe every Friday. Every Friday we step on the field, we compete until the horn sounds at the end of the game. We’re just constantly competing. Do not let yourself get down. If something happens like they score first, we just pick ourselves up and continue to work hard. Just have a winning attitude this year.”
Contact Tyler Jackson at tylerjackson@lootpress.com, call him at 304-731-5542 and follow on Twitter @tjack94
Schedule
1 08/26/21 7:30PM A – SUMMERS COUNTY HIGH SCHOOL –
2 09/03/21 7:00PM H – VAN SENIOR/MIDDLE SCHOOL –
3 09/10/21 7:30PM A – LIBERTY (RALEIGH) –
4 09/17/21 07:30PM H – WESTSIDE –
5 09/24/21 7:00PM H – SHADY SPRING –
6 10/01/21 7:00PM H – JAMES MONROE –
7 10/08/21 07:30PM A – BLUEFIELD –
8 10/15/21 OPEN –
9 10/22/21 7:30PM A – WYOMING EAST –
10 10/29/21 7:00PM H – RIVER VIEW –
11 11/05/21 07:30PM A – NICHOLAS COUNTY –
Roster
# Pos. Name Gr Ht Wt Avg
SAMUEL FREEMAN 9
Nicholas Stowers 9
2 WR/DB Peyton Greer 11 6’0 160
10 Nathan Riffe 11
11 Braydon Dalton 9
20 Dakota Billings 9
22 Adyn Dunford 9
23/21 AMILIYON SINGLETON 10
28 JOSIAH DANIELS 10
32 JONATHAN CRABTREE 9
33/34 Caleb Pritchard 12
45/35 Andrew Phillips 9
5 RB/LB Austin Shrewsbury 11 5’8 165
7 Ethan Weeks 9
42 Dakota Turpin 12
44 RB/DB Chase Mounts 10 5’7 135
52 Jason Cochran 11
53 Ryan Thompson 9
54 Kaden Duckworth 10
55 OL/LB Marcus Matney 11 6’2 235
56 Luke Shorter 9
61/60 MATTIX PRICE 9
63/62 ONDRE ASBURY 9
64 OL/DL GABRIEL HARRIS 11 5’10 185
64 LUCAS WILLIAMS 9
69 OL/DL CHRISTOPHER HARMON 11 5’10 250
70 MASON MEADOWS 9
72 Joshua Whitt 9
75 Jason Belcher 12
76 OL/DL MARSHALL SPRADLIN 12 6’2 275
79 OL/DL Heath Rye 11 6’1 210
80 Jordan Hazelwood 10
81/85 ALEC FARLEY 9
82 Mac Stemple 12
88 WR Dylan Blake 12 6’3 175