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North Johnston hopes experience will lead to bounce-back season
from August 2021
by Johnston Now
By RANDY CAPPS
KENLY — The 2020 season, which was pushed back to this spring because of COVID, was a challenging one for everyone.
At the top of that list is North Johnston, which struggled to find a rhythm, dropping all seven of its contests.
There’s nowhere to go but up for the Panthers under third-year coach Michael Barnett, who’s looking forward to a more normal football season this time around.
“I’m so excited for it,” he said. “We get to have summer workouts, a 10-game season for the kids. I’m ready.”
Another reason for optimism is the fact that the Panthers welcome back 15 starters for the fall campaign.
“It helps us from an experience standpoint,” Barnett said, “We were mostly freshmen and sophomores in the spring.”
Quarterback Carter Aycock, receiver Isiah Greene and “the Tyler twins” on the offensive line, Tyler Boswell and Tyler Dominquez, will provide leadership for the offense, while Cooper Gibson, who started at middle linebacker as a freshman, fellow linebackers Anthony Muniz and Steven Saunders and defensive end Ashton Woodall will headline the defense,
Of course, in the 2A ranks, many of those players will play on both sides of the ball. This fall, they’ll be doing so in the newly created Neuse 6 Conference with Beddingfield, Eastern Wayne, Goldsboro, Spring Creek and traditional rival Princeton.
“I love it,” Barnett said of the new league. “There’s way less driving, I know all of the coaches and there will be good football.”
Barnett hopes that the on-the-job training his team received in the spring will pay dividends this season.
“We want to build upon the competitiveness that we finished last season with,” he said. “We want to build on that and convert that into several wins this season.”
Schedule
Oct. 20 Farmville Central
Aug. 27 at Rosewood
Sept. 2 (Thursday) at Smithfield-Selma
Sept. 10 Nash Central
Sept. 17 BYE
Sept. 24 at North Pitt
Oct. 1 Spring Creek
Oct. 8 Beddingfield
Oct. 15 at Goldsboro
Oct. 22 at Eastern Wayne
Oct. 29 Princeton
