CADIZ, Ohio (WTRF) —

The Harrison Central Huskies won two of their last three last seasons to make the playoffs for the second straight year. This was for the first time in program history. Could they make it three straight years?

Now heading into his fifth season at Harrison, Coach Anthony Hayes has a young team with a 40-man roster. This is a group he says that is still looking for its identity.

“Of all years since I’ve been here this is probably the least comfortable with feeling out who we are as a team,” said Hayes.

One good note: they do return seven starters on offense including a junior who threw for more than 1,200 yards and 14 touchdowns. He’ll be joined in the backfield by Mykel Quito who had 70 carries as a freshman along with Blake Atkins and Caleb Cowans and Nate Frye at fullback.

The Huskies have several tall receivers: senior Josiah Jones and juniors Paeker Hutton and Alex Fluharty who’s 6’4″ join him at receiver. At tight end they have a pair of juniors in 6’6″ Klayton Vermillion and 6’7″ Nick Fluharty. Along the line they have senior Cabot Arbaugh Boles at left guard and Lucas Thomas at right tackle with sophomores Reed Arbaugh at center and Landon Thomas at right tackle.

“Who’s ever best up front is usually going to win the football game; we are unusual, we are unusually big we have good height good size we probably average 6’4″ on the 230-240 upfront so were really happy about that. We’re not deep there, that’s the issue we’ve got to stay healthy cause last year injuries killed us,” said Hayes.

Defensively, they will rely on Nate Fry at linebacker and Tre Rex who had five picks a year ago and Parker Hutton in the defensive But according to Hayes they must improve their tackling. 

“We were in the right spots, kids played hard it wasn’t a question of not playing hard we just didn’t tackle really well and you know it’s hard when your numbers are low were trying to work on getting our numbers up at practice,” said Hayes.

The Huskies open their season on the 19th at Claymont.

High School football previews in the 7 Sportszone are brought to you by the Health Plan, WVU Medicine and the Highlands.