POCA, W.Va. — “There is pressure on us. This community wants a state championship. We are going to try to bring a state championship home,” said Poca senior running back/cornerback Ethan Payne.
When preseason goals start at that level, the roster and the experience must be there as well. And in Poca, the Dots have a team that on paper can match up with the best in Class AA. It starts with a senior class filled with multi-year starters.
“My senior class, we have been together since (junior) team,” said Poca senior fullback/linebacker Dillon Taylor. “We have been together the whole way through. It always feels good. We are not really used to losing. We always work hard.”
Kennedy Award winning running back and Marshall commit Ethan Payne rewrote state record books in 2019, rushing for 49 touchdowns and 2,845 yards in 12 games. Head coach Seth Ramsey says Payne’s pregame preparation doesn’t go unnoticed.
“The little things he can pick up on as far as how to overhang players, how safeties play certain things, how linemen slant certain ways, “said Ramsey. “He does a lot of things on his own in the film.”
Payne will be joined in the backfield by fellow senior Jay Cook. He tossed 19 touchdown passes against just 2 interceptions in the regular season last fall. As a multi-year starter, Cook’s pre-snap recognition took a step forward in his junior year.
“He did a really good job of getting us out of a lot of bad plays and putting us in good plays,” Ramsey said. “A lot of times when we had a pass called but we didn’t have the numbers outside, he would change it to something in the box and we had a clean box.”
Cook’s top target is junior Toby Payne. The 6-foot-4, 220-pound junior reeled in 13 touchdown passes in the regular season last fall. He has scholarship offers from Tennessee, Rutgers and Marshall.
“If you put a smaller, quicker guy on him, he can go up and get a rebound over top of him on a jump ball. If you put a bigger guy on him and try to jam him, he is athletic enough where he can get around him and he is fast enough for a bigger guy,” Ramsey said.
After working in some younger players on the line a year ago, that group improved throughout the course of the season and many of them are back.
“Last year was the best the offensive line has been since we have been here,” Ramsey said.
Poca has gone 20-3 in the last two seasons but both those seasons ended with home playoff losses in the first round and quarterfinals respectively. Despite a remarkable turnaround for a program that endured a five-year stretch with just six wins earlier this decade, quick postseason exists have been difficult to take.
“We’ve got a sour taste in our mouth with how things ended last year,” Ramsey said. “We didn’t perform well in that last game. We are hungry to get back at it and we want to see how far we can go with this thing.”