“I feel like the team didn’t play bad, but definitely not as well as we could. It was a lot of the little things that caused the game to turn out the way it did,” senior Aaron Brannock said. 

     The Warriors scored within the first minute of the game and continued to gain momentum throughout the first quarter, bringing the score to 0-16 with SV  behind at the start of the second. 

     “We had a lot of missed tackles and missed assignments,” Brannock said. 

     Both teams played fiercely through the rain and near-freezing temperatures as the clock ran down to halftime. The Spartans stayed on the defensive as the Warriors pressed on. The half ended at 0-23 in favor of Weddington. 

     “This was a cold and wet game; all three phases had to play tough,” head coach Drew Hackett said.  “There were a lot of bad snaps on special teams; defense played well. We didn’t get too many turnovers for us, but we got [the Warriors] in some bad situations. Offensively, we limited our turnovers, so it was definitely just a cold, wet and muddy game.”

     The Spartans had yet to get on the scoreboard by the end of the third quarter, and the Warriors continued to tally up points. The score reached 0-43 in the last three minutes of the quarter.

     “It wasn’t just one person who messed up; it’s a team effort at the end of the day. Just like, [one player] messed up, but I messed up too,” senior Elisjah Latimer said. 

      During one of the final plays in the fourth quarter, the ball went dead in the SV end zone, granting the Spartans a two point safety and putting them on the scoreboard. For the remainder of the game, neither team scored, giving the Warriors the win. 

     “I feel like we need better communication,” Latimer said. “[N]ext game we should come out on top because we just [need] to work on the little things [that] cost us the game.”

     According to Maxpreps, the Spartans gained 14 total yards, three from passing and 11 from rushing, and the Warriors gained 172 total, 27 from passing and 145 from rushing. 

     The Spartan’s season started off rough, but Hackett is determined to flip the script in his first year at SV.

     “I thought we played tough; we have some things to fix up, but, overall, we had some great plays and some not-so-great plays. Definitely things that we can fix and get better for next week,” Hackett said. 

     Fri. March 5 is the Spartan’s next game and senior night. Parkwood High School will be travelling to the Spartan Stadium. Kick-off is at 7:00 o’clock and tickets are currently live for the game.