Fort Mill, SC — With a 52-19 drumming of East Gaston, the Catawba Ridge Copperheads broke a ten game losing streak. It’s still early in the season, but a 2-1 record is something to be proud of for the Copperheads.
“We are very excited to get back on the winning side of football,” said Catawba Ridge head coach Zachary Lendyak. “There are two things that we attribute to the turnaround, at least through three games — the players who played last year when everyone was hurt, are a year older, more experienced and battle tested, and we made a commitment to get back the winning culture by challenging the players and coaches to embrace change and buy into the little things it takes to win football games.”
The change in culture was reflected recently in their 21-14 win over the Chester Cyclones. On offense, Catawba’s Braylen Burgis finished the game with 136 receiving yards and two touchdowns while quaterback CJ Couch ended the night with 223 pass yards and three touchdowns. The team’s secondary picked up three interceptions. “We are playing Catawba Ridge football, which means we focus on creating turnovers on defense, not turning the ball over on offense and eliminating penalties, Lendyak pointed out. “So far, we have done a pretty good job of this, which allows us to win some football games. Another thing is that we’ve got everyone on the roster to buy into putting the team first.”
Catawba Ridge hosts Spring Valley at 7:30 p.m. this Friday. “We are excited to get back to The Pit for a game. We truly are focused on Spring Valley and controlling what we can control,” Lendyak said. The open opens region play the following week at Fort Mill High School (1-1). Lendyak added, “The region schedule is going to be tough, and opening with Fort Mill will be a challenging as they always play us very tough, and Coach McNeely does a great job preparing those guys.” The Fort Mill Yellow Jackets are at Lancaster this week.
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