Work awaits defending state champs Ritchie County

ELLENBORO -- There's a lot of change going on at Ritchie County High School and that's not limited to the defending Class A state football champion Rebels of head coach Rick Haught.

Chuck Schofield Memorial Stadium started getting a facelift this week. The new lights are already up and work has started on the new artificial surface that will include an eight-lane track.

Haught, who is entering his fifth season at the helm of the Rebels, inherited a program that had won five games in the previous four campaigns.

RCHS doubled up Williamstown last year, 42-21, to win the first state gridiron crown in school history, but a repeat is going to take some doing.

The Rebels suffered a bevy of losses from graduation, which included the top player in single-A Gus Morrison, who is now competing for Glenville State University and head man Mike Kellar.

"I'm trying to be in football and basketball mode at the same time. It's tough. Things just don't jive well," admitted Haught, who also coaches boys basketball and track among his many hats. "With the building of the new facility we had a building at the finish line. It became my project to rebuild that building and find the funding for it.

"I'm going to pull it off. Found enough money and donated materials and we got people to donate their time. It's going to look sharp down there. Monday and Tuesday we were 7-on-7 at St. Marys and Friday was a shootout at Tyler Consolidated. That's been my last couple of weeks, but it's been OK. I signed up for this."

Overall, Haught noted "it's a big project. We'll have new away and home bleachers, a new fence and it will be paved all the way around the stadium. The baseball infield is getting turf as is the softball field."

Back to the gridiron, the Rebel coaching staff will have their work cut out for them as they try to figure out where to best plug in their players to utilize their talents.

Topping that list is safety and returning first team all-state signal-caller Ethan Haught, who is likely going to be more of a two-way threat this season.

"To Ethan's credit he's worked hard in the weight room and we started to see last year what he could do with his feet," admitted coach Haught, who watched his son rush for 405 yards on 95 attempts with eight touchdowns as a junior. "He's much more dangerous. He can take off and get yards that way. We will be harder to defend that way. Really pleased with the improvement of Austin Bartlett (led team with 100 total tackles and had 25 catches for 454 yards and two scores) made on the offensive side of the football and his ball-catching abilities are much improved.

"Bodhi Utter (leading returning rusher 23-206-4 TDs) will be there. He will have a much larger role this year. There are some new kids that are older and we are getting glimpses. I think they can step in and help us. It's exciting to get new kids and see what they can bring to the table, and working with them in that aspect. We lost a lot and we are replacing a lot. People immediately go how are you going to replace a Gus Morrison and things like that, but the whole backfield is gone. We graduated everybody up front. That's going to be the biggest task, to replace the offensive line."

Right guard/defensive lineman Morgan Knight does return, but coach Haught admitted "we don't know if we will leave him there or move him to the backfield. At the same time it's kind of exciting. Our numbers are good. It's kind of exciting to see what kids will step up, what you can find, who has what abilities and try to figure out offensively, from my end, what can we best run with this new group of kids."

Despite being at a much different spot this summer as opposed to last year things are going about as well as expected.

Bruce Moyers is back after leading the Rebels in kickoff return yards. Also returning is cornerback Jace Wells, who the coach said could move up to where Glenville State signee Marlon Moore played last year.

"We might be looking for two corners," added the coach.

Knight finished eighth on the team with 50 total stops and the only other top 10 returning tackler is Tristen Ginanni, whose count of 67 put him sixth on the Rebels.

One of the biggest problems to date for Ritchie County is they are a little short on equipment since they had helmet fitting on Thursday and were pushing 50 players.

"It's a good issue to have. We have a lot of kids interesting in playing. It was a good day," Haught continued. "The last couple years we've been in the mid-30s, which is a nice size team in my opinion."

Everything is expected to be ready by the time the first of the season rolls around. However, the Rebels open the campaign on Aug. 26 at Tyler Consolidated and then have a bye week that's followed by road contests at Wahama and St. Marys before Doddridge County rolls into Ellenboro on Sept. 23.

"We're going to have to be ready to go," Haught said of his entire coaching staff. "It's one thing to coach 35 kids, but when you have 15 more kids that's a lot of reps to get in. We are going to have to be on our 'A' game.

"We'll use some of our flex days. We can just focus on getting kids stronger in the weight room and work on conditioning. We want to try to have the offense in so we can hit the ground running come August."

Contact Jay Bennett at jbennett@newsandsentinel.com