“We expect to win games this year,” said Hynus, whose team went 0-11 last season. “Our theme this year is no excuses. Last year, we had the excuse everyone was playing their seniors against our juniors and sophomores. What excuse do we have left? Now we need to do it.”

The expression, though not officially adopted, applies to the Golden Hawks’ neighbors a few miles north off N.C. 55 — Panther Creek.

Both schools enter their third seasons this fall. The cores of their teams have been together for three years. They’ve had the time in the weight room to close the gap physically. They have been through the rigors of an 11-game varsity season. This is the season they have been working toward.

“I haven’t been talking wins and losses,” said Panther Creek coach Wayne Bragg. “We’re talking about getting better and the wins will come. We want to be in every game, but it’s hard to go from getting blown out like we did last year to automatically winning those games this year. The next step is to be in the games. If you’re in the game in the fourth quarter, then we’ll see what happens.”

As is typical in the first varsity season for new programs, Panther Creek and Holly Springs took their share of lumps last season. Panther Creek went 1-10 and allowed 36.1 points per game while scoring only 9.5. After nearly beating Broughton in Week 3 (they lost 28-25), the Catamounts broke through for their first win the next week, when they held off Holly Springs 19-16. Two weeks later, they hung with Green Hope before succumbing 27-20. And then the injury bug hit. After playing well for a month, the Catamounts limped to the finish. They scored only four more touchdowns over their final five games, which featured three shutouts.

“The hardest part was keeping the team together,” said Gray Mazzone, the Catamounts’ senior quarterback. “Losing, you’ll get used to it. The worst part was trying to keep people from turning on each other and blaming other people. We stuck through it and we’re here together now.”

Holly Springs’ winless campaign featured four shutouts and an average margin of defeat of nearly 25 points per game. The Golden Hawks followed up the loss to Panther Creek with an eight-point defeat at East Wake before being blown out in each of the next three games. They nearly toppled Smithfield-Selma in Week 10, but lost 21-19, before closing out the season with losses to conference powers Southeast Raleigh and Garner.

But never did either team give up.

“They got knocked down but they never gave up and laid over,” Hynus said. “They were fighting to the last whistle. I had a lot of coaches come over and say, you guys were outmanned but you can see your kids are being taught not to give up. The fight was there.”

And it surely will be this season, too.

One thing both teams have on their side is history. Of the three Wake County high schools to open before them — Wakefield in 2000, Middle Creek in 2002 and Knightdale in 2004 — all three made the playoffs in their third year. In fact, Wakefield and Middle Creek both won eight games in their third seasons and went to the second round of the playoffs.

No one from either camp is ready to make a bold proclamation about their playoff hopes, though. That might be because neither team faces an easy road to the four wins that are a precursor to playoff qualification. The Golden Hawks compete in the Greater Neuse River Conference, a league that boasts five playoff teams from a year ago. As some additional motivation, the team would like to make an impression on the league before it departs for the Tri-Eight next year.

Before Holly Springs will think about four wins, senior Dan Collins points out that the Golden Hawks are still looking for win No. 1. “If we get some momentum going, the team gets pumped up and we’ll get our first win,” said Collins, a middle linebacker. “Then it’s just going to be a chain of wins for us. … We’re going to do our best. If we make the playoffs, that’s just all the better. But we’re just looking for our first win, and we’ll go on from there.”

The seniors from both teams are also intent on leaving a lasting imprint on the programs they were a part of from day one. All the struggles they endured a year ago, they hope, will benefit them this fall.

“It was really frustrating [last year], but it was a learning experience,” said Panther Creek’s Kevin Collins, a senior running back and defensive back. “We just had to learn how to play against bigger, faster, stronger guys. We were at a disadvantage. But I think that made us stronger as players and as people. So I believe we’ve learned from that and we’re going to correct everything this year.”