Laney football crushes Topsail, rekindles fire after turbulent start
· Yahoo Sports
There’s been little normal about Laney football’s first season under coach Coraey Houser.
Visit somethingsdifferent.biz for more information.
A canceled opener, a flooded locker room and three games in the span of a week have been mixed into a 2026 season that hasn’t always gone the way the Buccaneers hoped.
But on Friday, Oct. 2 in Hampstead, Laney finally got a chance to leave some of that frustration behind.
Fresh off a crushing overtime loss to Ashley in Week 6, the Bucs started fast and dominated all night, cruising to a 34-6 win over Topsail in Week 7 of the 2026 North Carolina high school football season.
“It brought a lot of anger out of us,” Laney senior running back Jeremiah Brown said of the loss to Ashley. “We didn’t execute the right way and that’s why we had to lock in this week.”
Brown rushed for more than 170 yards and a touchdown as Laney (3-4, 2-1 Carolina Coast) delivered perhaps its most complete performance of an otherwise turbulent season.
The Bucs' opener was postponed twice because of weather before eventually being canceled. Flooding in the team’s locker room created another headache, and a makeup game against Northside between Weeks 4 and 5 left Laney playing three times in eight days.
Through all of it, the Bucs have tried not to let the frustration consume them.
“I can’t say it hasn’t been a struggle, but it’s been a fun struggle,” Laney quarterback Joseph Stough said. “It’s all about just keeping that brotherhood between us. I think that’s what this win proved tonight.”
That perspective starts with Houser.
The first-year coach remembers standing at midfield in Week 1 as his players learned for the second time that they wouldn’t be playing that night. It was an early lesson in how quickly plans can unravel during a high school football season, and one Houser has tried to turn into something his players can carry with them.
“I tell them every day, the sun’s still gonna shine tomorrow,” Houser said. “It might not shine in Wilmington, North Carolina, but it’s going to shine somewhere.”
Friday, it felt a little brighter for the Buccaneers.
The win extended Laney’s advantage in the all-time series against Topsail to 12-2, with the team still unbeaten in Hampstead.
More importantly, after everything that has made Houser’s first season unpredictable, Laney looked like the team it hoped to become when the fall began.
“This is a huge win for us,” Houser said. “This win kept us together. … This was a game we needed. It was a game we had to execute and do everything right.”
This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: Laney football crushes Topsail, rekindles fire after turbulent start