Cleveland High seniors hope to turn string of unbeaten regular seasons into state title

Cleveland High seniors Cam Goins and Landon Inscoe sat for an interview Monday in a campus office. They discussed the Rams’ unbeaten football season and advancing to the fourth round of the NCHSAA 4A playoffs.

Suddenly, a fire alarm blared. They didn’t flinch.

“Fire drill,” Goins said rhetorically.

Inscoe, with a casual nod: “Got to go outside.”

They took the abrupt interruption in stride, which shouldn’t be surprising.

Throughout four years of high school, the two seniors and their 12th-grade teammates have enjoyed the luxury of winning. Cleveland’s varsity is 37-0 the past four regular seasons and the Rams’ JV team also was unbeaten when the current seniors played on the JV roster before their varsity elevation.

The 2023 seniors include two fourth-year varsity players, Goins and Josiah Peters; seven third-year varsity lettermen, Inscoe, his twin brother Camdon Inscoe, Karson Cook, Gage Tremaine, Damarius Plummer, Terrance Simon, and Kedar Mangum; and 13 more seniors on the roster.

“It’s a really good feeling being around everybody on this team,” said Goins, the Rams’ leading receiver with 59 catches for 864 yards and 13 touchdowns. “We’ve grown up with moms looking over all of us. We’ve stayed at each other’s houses.”

Added Inscoe, a strong safety: “We’ve played together since Pop Warner and trust each other. I’ve known Cam my whole life. I trust him on the field.”

Cleveland (13-0), seeded No. 2 in the NCHSAA 4A playoffs, next faces No. 3 seed Wilmington Hoggard (12-1) at 7 p.m. Friday on the Rams’ field. The game is a rematch from the season opener that Cleveland won 28-20 at Hoggard’s field. In the latest 4A state rankings, Cleveland is No. 4 and Hoggard No. 5.

Although this is the Rams’ fourth season in a row entering the playoffs with an unbeaten record, they feel they’ve left unfinished business on the table until they win the school’s first state football crown.

They came closest in 2020, the COVID-19 abbreviated season that was actually played in the spring of 2021. The Rams were 7-0 in the regular season and won four playoff games until they lost in the 3AA state final to Mount Tabor, 24-16.

But the past two years in the 4A playoffs, Cleveland suffered upsets to higher seeded teams. They lost in the 2021 third round to eventual state champion Cardinal Gibbons, and in the 2022 second round to Rolesville.

Incidentally, those schools will square off in the other East Region semifinal this weekend.

“We’ve got big expectations every year we go into the playoffs,” Inscoe said. “When we got knocked off early, it surprised us and hurt.”

The losses all sting, says Goins, but he personally felt more wounded as a freshman.

“It was a different kind of hurt,” he said. “I felt we let down the seniors, our big brothers.”

This season the Rams not only avoided an early-round upset, they’ve won three straight lopsided decisions, defeating No. 31 seed Gray’s Creek, 57-13; No. 15 Leesville Road, 49-21; and No. 10 New Bern, 56-13.

The 2023 offense has added explosion with Goins’ return from a knee injury that limited him to one game in 2022 and junior quarterback Jackson Byrd’s experience as a second-year starter.

“I was down when I was injured, but I worked hard on my rehab,” Goins said. “I had people around me to motivate me. When you’re around good spirits like that, it’s hard to stay down.”

If the 2023 season is the Triangle’s year of the junior quarterback, Byrd belongs in the picture. In 13 games, the 6-foot, 195-pounder has thrown for 3,359 yards and 36 touchdowns with nine interceptions.

Although the Rams are still chasing a state title, they haven’t left their trophy case empty or walls bare of banners. They’ve won six straight conference titles (under different names). Cleveland was 7-0 in league play to claim the 2023 Greater Neuse River 4A title. They romped through their first six league opponents, outscoring them 284-13 — an average margin of 47.3 to 2.2.

But they received a needed test in the regular-season finale when the Greater Neuse title was at stake against crosstown rival Clayton on the Comets’ field. Cleveland won, 33-31.

Inscoe says of one of the Rams’ secrets is older players bringing along younger teammates. He learned from Keyshawn Monk, who is now a freshman playing at Fayetteville State. Another program ingredient, he added, is they arrive in high school looking forward to playing for a stable coaching staff. Scott Riley is in his 10th year as head coach, and 13th at the school.

“When we were in middle school, we knew were coming to play for a great coach,” he said. “We trust our coaches and try to be the best person we can be. There’s always pressure to win, but we have a great organization here.”