Related Articles
The Brookland-Cayce Bearcats are one of the Midlands’ success stories in recent years. Head coach Rusty Charpia took the reigns of the athletic depatment and the football and baseball programs in 2011 and has taken the Bearcats from the wasteland of high school football to edge of greatness, narrowly missing trips to the state title game twice in recent years.
Charpia, who is one of the three most tenured football coaches in the Midlands along with Tom Knotts at Dutch Fork and Justin Gentry at Chapin, isn’t done yet.
“Our goal is to win a state championship,” said Charpia. “We’ve got a talented team coming back and I think if things go our way and we can get through a couple of rounds of the playoffs, we have as good a chance as anyone.”
To prepare for this, Charpia has schedule one of the toughest non region schedules of any 3A school. He opens the season with Byrnes and has also scheduled Northwestern, Airport, AC Flora and Chapin in non-region play.
“That’s the only way we can get better is to play better teams,” said Charpia. “If we can get through that non region guantlet without getting too banged up, we have a chance.”
The Bearcats are coming off of an 8-4 season in 2021 and return a wealth of talent from that team that lost by just three points in the playoffs to eventual state champion Camden.
Returning to the Bearcats are some key senior players, including Quarterback Tanner Staton, WR/RB Nazeikiel Mays, Jayden Johnson at WR/SS, WR Evan Golden, OL Jaloni Goldstein, DL Tron Pauling, and LB BJ Pugh.
key juniors to the line up will be WR/DB Will Young, OL Camden Sox, OL Jakori JOnes, and RB Deshawn Washington who worked his way into the starting line up as a sophomore.
“The strength of our team will be the skill playsers and our line on offense,” said Charpia. “This is one of the biggest lines we’ve had since I’ve been here and Staton is going to be very good at quarterback for us. He’sgotten bigger and stronger and I think he’s one of the better quarterbacks in the MIdlands.”
“If we have a weakest area, I’d say it’s at linebacker,” he said. “We’ve got some good players there but not a lot of experience. And out defensive line is good but they don’t have a lot of size.”
According to Charpia, the kids have looked good in workouts so far and are working hard. They will see some 7 on 7 action this week against Summerville and continue to work hard throughout the Summer.
“We know the task ahead of us,” said Charpia. We’ve got some 5A programs on that scheudle and several who have been in championships in recent years. Our expecations are to use those challenges to get better each week so we can be prepared when region play and playoffs roll around.”
