Change, early loss helps Butler enter postseason in a familiar position
Butler enters the postseason with a good shot at winning its third consecutive title, thanks to contributions from (from left) Josh Glisson, Zach Ferguson, Uriah LeMay, Brandon McNeely and coach Brian Hales. (Aaron Garcia/MMHW photo)
In many ways, as the Butler football players celebrated with their fans along the railing on the visitors’ side of the stands at Independence High School on Oct. 28, things looked about status quo – at least over the past two years, when the Bulldogs have won 40 of 41 games and collected two Class 4AA state titles.
And last week’s gritty 38-26 win over rival Independence was another big win over a good team, and clinched the Bulldogs’ third consecutive Southwestern 4A conference title.
But as the Bulldogs prepared this week for their first-round playoff matchup against Hoke County, perhaps the biggest threads connecting Butler’s first two titles and this year’s squad are the ones in the uniforms. Yes, several players returned to starting roles from last year, such as quarterback Riley Ferguson, receivers Uriah LeMay and Zach Ferguson and linebacker Peter Kalambayi. But when standouts such as running back Jahwan Edwards (Ball State University) and linebacker Kris Frost (Auburn) graduated last spring, and coach Mike Newsome departed for Kannapolis A.L. Brown, they look with them the face of a program that had asserted itself as the team to beat in North Carolina.
As good as the remaining talent was, there were new roles to be filled and a new identity to be formed if the team was going to maintain the program’s standards.
So far, especially after beating a high-quality team such as Independence, it seems Butler is well on its way to doing so. The Bulldogs completed league play with a 9-1 record, including a 7-0 conference mark. But ironically, suffering its first loss since 2008 to start their year against Mallard Creek was a huge step in the Bulldogs’ development.
It seems there’s nothing quite like a loss to make you appreciate your wins.
“I really think we had too much confidence heading into that game,” senior lineman and captain Brandon McNeely said. “We didn’t have our heads screwed on straight. We were feeding off last year a little bit. We kind of went into it thinking, ‘It’s a big game, but we’ve been here before.’”
Instead, the Bulldogs stood outside Mallard Creek’s visitors locker room stunned and sullen following their streak-snapping loss.
But McNeely said a new team showed up to practice the following Monday.
“Sometimes you learn from losing,” he said. “I think it’s done us good to get a little taste of that. It’s brought a lot of heart back to us.
“The seniors here, we hadn’t lost a game in two years, and I think we needed the reassurance that, ‘Hey. It’s possible to get beat by another team if we don’t play our hardest and give it all we’ve got.’”
Losing to nationally ranked Mallard Creek is one thing. But when the Bulldogs found themselves on the wrong side of the score with just minutes remaining in their game against Ardrey Kell on Oct. 6, well, that was something different. Ardrey Kell was a very good team expected to challenge Butler for the Southwestern 4A crown. But Ardrey Kell wasn’t just challenging the Bulldogs that night; they were on the verge of usurping their status as conference leaders.
But the Bulldogs came back for the 43-40 win.
“We’d never really been down like that before,” McNeely said. “We built up, came together as a team and won it at the last minute. We had to pull it together and get it done.”
Hales said out of that scare came a new sense of camaraderie within the team’s ranks, which was vital in the group’s development.
“With the whole Ardrey Kell game and the way these guys had to come together after that, I think (the Independence win) was just another example of that,” first-year head coach Brian Hales said as he walked toward the team bus that night.
LeMay agreed.
“The one thing about our team is we really are a family,” he said. “That’s something a lot of teams talk about, but that’s how we’ve won games.”
For example, after linebacker Peter Kalambayi sprained his ankle in practice two days before the Independence game, Todjrei Graham stepped in and played admirably. Fellow linebacker Sean Wiggins had a stellar night while also joining Tyrin Edwards in filling in at fullback, as they’ve done all year. First-year starting running back Josh Glisson gave a performance reminiscent of Edwards as he helped grind the Bulldogs to the win with some key yardage late in the game.
It was the kind of team effort needed to not only win a heated rivalry game but also perhaps put them in a better position to uphold the program’s tradition of bringing home state titles, even if some of the players in the uniforms are different this time around.
“We’re definitely a different team than we were (the last two years),” said Hales. “This year was an opportunity. There was a void (in the leadership positions) there. We had some people step up into different roles they weren’t used to, so it gave those guys a chance to develop that and get a sense of who we are as a team.”
That new identity includes a nine-game winning streak and a realistic shot at winning their third consecutive title. And thanks to an early-season loss and another near-miss, this success is all theirs.
“Me and a bunch of the other players on the team, we never lost at Butler,” Wiggins said. “That loss made us feel what a loss feels like, and so we’re making sure we never feel that again. We’ve got to make sure that never happens again.”
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