I must say I am overly impressed with Cherokee. I certainly have had my doubts on them. I never truly believed their hype but I must say these young men came in and played. They are talented and like all Cherokee teams, they have athletes. It has been unfortunate to see so many of those teams under perform. Just like the undefeated 12-0 team that was upended in the 3rd round by none other than North Duplin. But Briggs has turned the program around just from this point. In these short years he has them at the brink of high school immortality. Just think Briggs inherited a team that didn’t win a game. A program that had become the bottom of the SMC barrel. He didn’t have the luxury like Skooter, the boys he had won cracker bowls, JV championships and even won back to back conference titles. Those kids were accustomed to winning but the big game eluded them. This current team took lumps, bruises and low moral. Many of these kids grew up watching the Braves of the early 2000's. The Braves teams that annihilated the conference.They were blowing out teams and from 2005-2008 always had a winning record. But when it was these current kid's time to play at Ray Kinsland in a brand new facility it was a different story. They found themselves on the losing end of the blow out games, the ones Cherokee used administer. I am sure everyone on this team knows the importance of finishing out the year as they started. This game is the final page in a long story. It is up to these boys to write that happy ending. In the old school you would see a trophy case full of Cherokees accomplishments, but often times unlike Murphy, Swain or Robbinsville the trophy case would only show 1 state championship and one too many Runner-ups. For Cherokee this is the year to etch their name in the books as State Champions. Something a men’s team has never done. You have decades of teams and athletes from Cherokee and surrounding schools who say that Cherokee team “coulda, shoulda, woulda”. Well this Saturday if Cherokee comes to play, then everyone can say they "coulda, shoulda and did win a state title".