SALEM, Va. – The Glenvar Highlanders are one of VHSL Class 2′s finest — year in and year out. Head Coach Kevin Clifford enters his 17th season.
In 2022 the Highlanders dominated offensively — they had no trouble finding the end zone, averaging more than 32 points per game. They notched a 9-4 season that ended in a region finals shootout loss to Appomattox 38-34. But this year personnel dictates that their run game is the new emphasis.
As size up front has grown — “Well, we have a lot of lineman, like 85 percent of us are lineman so we’re gonna use that to advantage and help our run game,” senior running back and linebacker Shane Gibson explains.
“Running, we’re gonna run a lot. Our offensive lineman carry us through the whole entire game so we are planning to run. We don’t have all the offensive guys we had last year like Jackson and Gabe. They’re really good weapons that we had last year, but we don’t have them so we’re planning to run the ball a lot more to make up for that,” senior lineman Nathan Johnson said.
“We have two linebackers back that we’re all-district and really just solid football players,” he said. “We got our two really good defensive lineman back. We’ve got some good skills (skill position players) coming back so we’ll see it’s going to be a mixture of youth and age but just good kids at work hard that like football.”
Glenvar hosts VHSL Class 1 power Galax on opening night Aug. 25.