[Panther Thunder]

Just curious why are all the Pikeville fans on here saying this team wasn't expected to have a good year? Twenty seniors on a 1A football team is the year to get it done!

There were at most 13. I believe 12, though. One was a kicker only, and half did not get very much playing time at all. While the senior class did provide excellent leadership and being great teammates, the production outside of Maynard and Miller offensively and Hefner and Maynard defensively was by underclassmen.

McPeek and Robinson did an excellent job on both sides of the line, but you have to think that coming into the season Robinson had missed both his sophomore and junior seasons due to early season injuries. Gavin Miller had returned to action for the first time since early in his sophomore season. Nick Jones was hit and miss coming in but turned into a pleasant surprise on the defensive side of the ball.

And the production from Black (soph), Hall (soph), Estep (fresh), Maynard (fresh), Anderson (junior) was what was hard to predict and these guys all stepped up and played very, very well.

I think Pikeville fans tend to be more conservative on preseason predictions based on the troubles with the program lately and the expectations were not as high with a lot of uncertainty coming into the season, but all the uncertainty was met head on by this team and they turned into a solid football team by the end of the year.