By Adam Robinson
Sports editor

Although the W.S. Neal Eagle football team saw their season come to an end Friday night with a 29-22 second round playoff loss to the Munford Lions, WSN head coach Doug Hoehn said he thought his kids played extremely hard this year and have made drastic changes over the course of seasons in the past.
“We played in a tough region and played a tough schedule,” he said. “We had a couple of long trips. I think we got better as the year went on. We played in 11 games and a kickoff classic. That is 12 games and in eight of those games, we didn’t have any turnovers and we won all eight. Turnovers do make a difference in high school football. In the four games we lost, we had turnovers. Overall, I think we did a lot better with our turnovers this year and I think we have been improving each year.”
Since Hoehn took over WSN’s program in 2011, the Eagles have improved vastly- and the stats show it.
“When we started here four years ago, if you look at our record, we are 22-21,” he said. “In the four years previous, WSN was 10-31. I think even more importantly in the region, because those are games that you have to win to make the playoffs, we are 13-14 in the last four years. In the four previous years, WSN was 4-24.”
The offensive stats show the improvement as well.
“Offensively we have done a really good job of getting better every year,” he said. “This senior group the last four years, we have scored 1,343 points which is an average of 32 points a game. In the four previous years, WSN had scored 688. Again in region games, we scored 804 compared to 350. So we have doubled the production of points scored in a season and points scored per game. We have cut in half points given up in a season and the last four years. We have doubled the wins and tripled the region wins.”
Hoehn said he and his staff knew that when they started four years ago, they knew they had some hard work to turn around the program and the seniors have helped do that.
“We had two playoff wins while the years before we had none,” he said. “They never quit. We had a tough year last year with all the injuries and they came back this year. This is the type of year I expect us to have year in and year out. We want to be highly competitive and compete for a playoff spot. That is our goal on a yearly basis.”
In years past, Hoehn said it looked like for the Eagles of East Brewton to not have a good season and then win one game, two games or three games in a season.
“That seems like what the history around here has been for a while,” he said. “If you look at our last four years, we have got better every year and we are moving forward. That is because of our seniors. They deserve the credit from that along with their parents, our faculty at the school, the band, cheerleaders, fans and the community. Everyone has really got behind them. They have really been behind them the last four years. It has been a complete turnaround.”
Once again, Hoehn credited the seniors of WSN’s teams to helping with the program.
He said that the seniors have broken the school record for points scored in a game and many others.
“They did it their sophomore year and they did it again this year,” he said. “They own the record for points scored in a playoff game, record for points in a half and part of the WSN team to have only one 2,000 yard rusher. They have broke several records, especially on offense for school and AHSAA records.”
So what about 2015? Hoehn said they would have a lot of depth coming back.
“We were relatively young this year,” he said. “We thought we had a lot of depth coming back last year until we had all the injuries. This year we thought we were going to be young and then we moved up a division.
“The schedule was very tough. We have a lot of good football players coming back. Malcolm Hawthorne, Quenton Samuel, Dakota Graves and Jonathan Lang are coming back along with Eddie Murphy. We are losing three offensive linemen, two defensive linemen, a quarterback, a linebacker, a defensive back and a receiver.
“Everything else is coming back.”