West vs. South. West vs. North. The only 3A schools in the conference. Always gets your blood pumping playing against your biggest rivalry teams, especially since beating them can be the difference between going on to the playoffs or getting knocked out.
“It’s definitely more intense playing against North and South than playing against other teams,” said junior Keiri Velasquez. “Especially because beating them gives us a higher ranking over them and number one in the county.”
Along with the three Brunswick County High Schools, all four New Hanover County high schools are included in the Mid eastern conference. While beating both of the teams in our county gets us in the playoffs, beating the New Hanover teams means number one in our conference. Although it is something we all want to achieve, beating them is more difficult than it may seem.
“We’re a 3A school, there’s South, North, and West Brunswick,” said senior Noah Hewett. “Then you start looking at the 4A schools- Laney, Hoggard, Ashley, and New Hanover. They have a bigger advantage in every sport when they play a Brunswick county team.”
The majority of New Hanover County High Schools such as Hoggard, Ashley, and Laney, all have over 2,000 students, while West has slightly over 1,400 students. It may not seem like a major factor to their success, but it is truly one of the main factors of how successful their teams are in every sport.
“We’re one of the smaller schools in our conference,” said sophomore Kelsey Lynkins. “And especially if you’re including Wilmington teams they have a larger population at their school which means they have more athletes. There’s just a lot of advantages that the size of their school gives them.”
Along with size, preseason preparation is also a main factor to the continuous success the New Hanover teams have had. Beginning workouts for a sport extremely early is not new for them. With the amount of kids at their schools, they have enough athletes to begin workouts early, while Brunswick county athletes usually play more than two sports and are unable to attend preseason workouts.
“We start way closer to the season then the New Hanover teams,” said Hewett. “In lacrosse, we end in the spring, and they’re already working out for the next season in summer, when we start later in the winter, and even then barely anybody can come out because they’re playing another sport. It definitely gives them a bigger advantage.”
Size and skills may have a major impact on how well you will perform in a game, however, the fast road to failure is not having the ability to work as a team. This includes no communication, a lack of teamwork, no positive energy, not lifting each other up on the little things, limited patience, etc.
“Most of the time it depends on the team,” said Lynkins. “Usually if the team gets along you’ll usually have more success. If your team doesn’t get along, you won’t do well. We’re able to beat bigger schools because we are like a family.”
The mid eastern conference is a hard conference to play in, but adjusting, growing together, studying your opponent, working as a team, and learning from the mistakes made, is the best way to compete.
“Our team has to learn the plays the other team has as best and quick as we can,” said senior Sophie Rozen. “Focusing and game IQ is very important to adjust to other teams. We might lose games, but as long as we are able to say we fought and worked hard, I think we can take that game as a win.”
