Lewis County building off playoff win

WESTON, W.Va. — The big story out of Class AAA on Friday night of last year’s opening playoff round centered around Lewis County as the Minutemen took down University, 24-23, for the school’s first ever playoff win.

“It was a great event for our county, our school and our town,” said Lewis County head coach Eddie Vincent. “It was a big deal. At that time, we were already the best season in school history at 8-2 — no Lewis County team had ever won more than seven games in a year.”

That win over University was the eighth in a row for Lewis County on the year after starting out 1-2 with losses to the Hawks (35-7) and Pt. Pleasant (14-13) early on. No doubt, University will looking to avenge its playoff loss to the Minutemen when the two teams meet in Weston to open up the year.

“They are always very talented and a top five or top 10 team in the state,” Vincent said. “Last year, they beat us 35-7 in the season opener and I think we had five turnovers – we were tight and didn’t do what we were capable of. That was one of the things that motivated us the rest of the season. Our guys were a little bit embarrassed by that.”

Lewis County lost a lot of experience from that 2012 campaign — 13 seniors are gone who were significant contributors in one way or another.

“We only have two or three starters back from that team last year,” Vincent said. “We have a lot of new faces out there, but they’ve been around guys who knew how to win and how to work. Hopefully that will carry over to these guys.”

One of the key players who does return is Skylar Carlton who moves to quarterback after spending last year at receiver and defensive back, earning second team all-state honors. Also back is fullback and linebacker Mark Metzgar who rushed for over 1,000 yards in 2012.

“Obviously, we are going to build our team around those two,” Vincent said. “We’re also moving Dustin Martin, one of the faster guys in the area, from wide receiver to running back. He’s a guy that can be a game-breaker for us, we think. This core of running backs may be the most talented we’ve had here.”

Still, the Minutemen will have a lot of untested players on the field when they open up play against University.

“From a talent standpoint, we’re very similar to last year,” Vincent said. “But we are unproven, a little bit inexperienced in terms of live, varsity football. It’s going to be interesting to see – right now I think we’re right on target. I don’t see a whole lot of drop off, but we don’t have the depth that we’ve had before – that’s probably our biggest concern.”

The job Vincent has done at Lewis County has been impressive, to say the least, as he heads into his seventh year at the helm.

“It’s been a fast seven years,” Vincent said. “When we started getting a couple of wins, it was amazing to see how far we’ve come with it. Now, it’s almost like we’re expected to be in the playoffs every year.

“In a six year period, we went from a team that has been 0-10, perennial doormats of our conference to now where we didn’t lose a conference game last year,” he continued. “We need to be in that Class AAA playoff mix every year, and these guys expect that – they want more than that.”