3 Rock Hill region prep football teams have a chance to win a title. What will it take?

As the high school football season heads into its final two games, three Rock Hill region schools are poised to make championship runs. And they can’t avoid each other as they push toward the 4A state championship.

Northwestern (No. 4), Catawba Ridge (No. 5) and South Pointe (No. 7) have remained in the SC Prep Media 4A Football rankings all season.

South Pointe (2-1, 6-2) plays Northwestern (7-1, 3-0) Friday night. Unbeaten Catawba Ridge (8-0, 3-0) has defeated South Pointe, and will play Northwestern on Oct. 28.

Here’s a brief status report on the three region 4A teams with significant chances to be state champions:

Northwestern

Northwestern spent the last six seasons as a 5A program. Jimmy Duncan, who’s been the athletic director at Northwestern since 2019, says he’s proud of the strides the Trojans have made.

“We keep it very simple,” Duncan said. “We just try to get better everyday. Just a little bit better. As simple as that sounds, that is the goal from the first day in the offseason to the very last day. We just want to get a little better each day. And, you know, that tends to be pretty good for everybody.”

Northwestern lost eight games in the 2019 season, which also was the first year of head coach Page Wofford’s tenure. Since he took over, the Trojans have lost four games, and have outscored opponents 411-155.

“Coach Wofford made some coaching changes,” Duncan said. “Got to bring on some of his guys and was able to get everybody involved in the system. And they got a recipe that seems to work right now.”

Catawba Ridge

The Copperheads came into the season with the lofty expectations.

The freshmen who started with the program four years ago -- in the school’s first year of competition -- are now seniors.

“I think we got an opportunity to do some damage,” Catawba Ridge Athletic Director Richard Lewis said. “This week and next week will set the tone for the playoffs, whether we’ll be sitting at home for playoff games all the way through to the upper state or whether we’ll just get one. Or, if we drop both games, we’ll be on the road. There’s still a lot of uncertainty in that. But as far as what we’ve done so far in building that team-first attitude, I tell you what, we’re on quite a roll right now.”

The Copperheads are currently on a program-best eight-game winning streak, and Lewis says that growth is a major testament to the football staff that the school has brought on to lead its football program.

“(Head coach) Zac (Lendyak) obviously has been a great leader for the football team,” Lewis said. “Coming in with the ‘Be the why’ motto, and just teaching that team concept. That’s a big reason why we’re where we are. He’s a great offensive mind. We wanted someone who the kids would gravitate to. And they love Zac, and they love this coaching staff.

“The other part is I’ve been in this for 34 years. And Zac was a new head coach with a lot of coordinator experience but had never been a head coach. We wanted to get a mix of assistants with him.”

Lewis said the coaching staff has put winning first and remains committed to both the athletes and building the football program.

South Pointe

South Pointe already has lost more games this season than it had in five of their previous seven seasons. However, the Stallions are the defending-4A state champions. There are seven championships in the program’s history.

“They just have to be consistent,” South Pointe Athletic Director Carlos Richardson said. “Just have to do the same thing that they’ve been doing from the beginning of last year to this present moment. Just being consistent, showing up everyday, having great weeks of practice, and then using that momentum and practice to head into the game.”

Under first-year head coach Bobby Collins, South Pointe dropped consecutive games for the first time since it lost three straight in 2014. However, Richardson is still proud of the work Collins has done at the position and battling through the adversity.

“He’s done a great job,” said Richardson, who joined South Pointe last October as athletic director. “He has a lot of pressure being the head coach of South Pointe. Not only do we have a new head coach, we have a new offensive coordinator and a new offensive line coach.

“We started out hot, but we kind of hit a learning-phase plateau where we’re trying to still get to know coaches, get to know the kids and what makes them tick. He’s done a great job of keeping going forward, but again, it’s a learning process.”

What if?

Here are each team’s remaining schedules and the various scenarios that would lead the teams to first in their region, and maybe a championship:

Northwestern: at South Pointe, vs Catawba Ridge

Scenarios to win region:

• Northwestern wins out
• Northwestern defeats Catawba Ridge AND a South Pointe loss at York
  
  

Catawba Ridge: at Indian Land, at Northwestern

Scenario to win region:

• Catawba Ridge wins at Northwestern (Catawba Ridge would own the head-to-head tiebreaker over Northwestern and South Pointe and be named region champion if all three schools were to finish at 4-1.)

South Pointe: vs Northwestern, at York

Scenario to win region:

• South Pointe wins out, AND Catawba Ridge loses its remaining games.

This story was originally published October 20, 2022 at 1:58 PM.