HAMPTON, VA (WTKR)- Only 12 high school football teams across the commonwealth have ever won three state titles in a row. Phoebus is one of them and this year finds the Phantoms hoping to do it again.
The bar has been set high for the program and while Phoebus plans to take things one day at a time and focus on the opponent directly in front of it this season, the Phantoms are not shying away from state championship discussions.
"When expectations are high, you can't hide from those types of conversations," head coach Jeremy Blunt pointed out. "It's something that's uttered within the local neighborhood, within the hallways of the school and the homes of these young men, so you can't hide from that."
Phoebus is getting used to the top of the mountain. The Phantoms have won two consecutive state titles and gone 29-1 over the course of the last two seasons. The current group, however, is not resting on past accomplishments. The players are keeping their feet on the ground, their heads in the game and pushing forward.
"Coming off a two-time state championship, everybody gets full of themselves and they think they're just going to come back and it's going to be easy," said senior Anthony Reddick, who plays defensive end, linebacker and tight end, among other positions for Phoebus. "It takes a lot to actually three-peat and come back and take another win."
"The expectations going into every year, they're extremely high," added Blunt. "Now you just look at the fact that we're fighting for something a little bit different this year in a sense of we're going to be in a position to defend."
The Phantoms' previous two championships came in Class 3. This season the program makes the jump to Class 4, where a new gauntlet of teams will stand in the way come the playoffs.
"It's a whole new added challenge when you consider the fact that we're moving up to Division 4," the head coach said. "We're champions of Division 3, moving up and there was a champion crowned in D-4 last year so we're excited for that opportunity moving up."
This year's roster is no stranger to success. 14 starters return from a team that made the state title run a year ago, along with plenty of other players who have taken some pretty big stages of high school football.
"Everybody wants to beat us," Reddick noted. "We have to play, practice, everything we do has to be championship level."
"They understand there's a recipe in place," added Blunt. "They understand what it takes so that does help. You can refer back and you have those moments that you can say 'hey, this was a turning point for us last year,' so it won't be something that we're not familiar with."
Phoebus opens its season September 1 at Oscar Smith.
