By Mike London
Salisbury Post
MOUNT ULLA — Claiming it was a great 2025 local high school football season is an argument you can’t win.
The six Rowan County schools were done after two postseason rounds, and with the mayhem and expansion brought on by the switch to eight classifications, there were 112 teams still alive in the NCHSAA playoffs at that point. West Davidson is still playing. South Davidson is still playing. It’s like the football world has been turned upside down.
The records for the Rowan schools this season: West (7-5), North (7-5), Carson (5-6), East (4-7), South (3-8) and Salisbury (2-9). That doesn’t look awful on the surface, but then you have to consider that a lot of those wins, especially with five Rowan teams packed into one eight-team league, were wins achieved against other Rowan schools.
Playing against schools outside the county, Rowan teams were 16-28. Blame South Piedmont Conference bullies Robinson, Concord and Northwest Cabarrus for most of that. Yes, Robinson is still playing.
In the playoffs, Rowan teams were 2-6, and the two wins weren’t exactly legendary stuff. West and North were only asked to make 6-inch putts at home in the first round in order to advance.
Picking a Rowan County Coach of the Year in such an unusual year wasn’t a routine job.
You look for improvement. Carson improved. Coach Jonathan Lowe’s team bumped from three wins to five, and one of those wins was against a very good Mount Pleasant team (MaxPreps No. 138). If Carson beats West, the Cougars have a winning season and Lowe is a great candidate.
East Rowan made even longer strides than the Cougars from 2024 — going from zero wins to four and from somewhere off the grid to competitiveness. East coach Brian Flynn had to be considered for coaching honors, but the best of the four teams East beat was Salisbury (295th in the MaxPreps rankings). If the Mustangs had been able to close the deal against West Rowan, then Flynn was the guy, but they didn’t.
North coach Josh Sophia had to be considered, as well. The Cavaliers’ 7-5 bottom line was achieved after an 0-3 start. Not only that, North won something. The Cavaliers were part of a three-way tie for first in a league with a strong upper tier. North’s road triumphs at South Stanly (MaxPreps No. 178) and Mountain Island Charter (No. 255) were among the best five victories posted by Rowan schools this season. The downside for North was an 0-2 record in county games, including a loss to a 2-9 Salisbury squad.
West had a bumpy ride, and that’s putting it mildly, but the Falcons did have a winning season, and they went 5-0 in county games, something that has only been done once before — by West in 2022.
Two of those county battles — West’s comebacks at East and Carson — were among the most exciting games of the season, so it was an extremely challenging 5-0, not a yawner 5-0. West also spotted North a couple of early touchdowns before roaring back.
West’s win against Northwest Cabarrus (No. 123 MaxPreps) was the best one achieved by a Rowan County team this season and enabled the Falcons to tie for second in the South Piedmont Conference with a 5-2 record. So it wound up as another solid season for the Falcons, and West head coach Louis Kraft is the Post’s Rowan Coach of the Year for the second time.
Kraft endorsed Flynn, but a 5-0 county sweep is hard to ignore. Kraft was a co-winner of the honor in 2022, along with Salisbury coach Clayton Trivett.
West is the only Rowan team currently ranked in the top 200 in the state by MaxPreps. The Falcons are 184th. The other MaxPreps rankings: Carson (218), North Rowan (246), Salisbury (295), East Rowan (298) and South Rowan (345).
Kraft took the reins of the Falcons back in the COVID days. This was his sixth season. His best record so far was compiled by the 9-3 team of 2022.
He’s coached West to 22 straight county wins.
“Nowhere else I’d rather be than Mount Ulla,” Kraft said. “Coaching at West Rowan is my dream job, my pinnacle. I bleed the blue. There’s a mystique about this place, and it’s because of the people here. I’m blessed with a great staff that includes four coaches who have been around a long time. Kevin Parks, Tim Dixon, Durwood Bynum and my dad (Skip Kraft) bring an experience level that is hard to quantify.”
Kraft played football, basketball and baseball for the Falcons and was a tight end during the football team’s glory days. He is especially pleased to get a chance to coach with his father, who has years of football experience as an assistant and was West’s head baseball coach for many years.
“It’s been very cool from a family standpoint, and it’s also cool to be coaching with a number of West alums, as well as some guys who came to us from outside the West community,” Kraft said. “We’ve got a good mix of old heads and young heads. Everything starts with our AD (Mary Allison Melton) and an administration that gives us the tools to have success. The Falcon Family includes a fan base that gives us their hearts and energy no matter how far from home we travel. This is a very tight-knit community, so any award I might get, it’s recognition for our staff, our players, our school and our community.”
There were lots of West doubters at different times during this season — especially after losing a lead (and their quarterback) at Concord and after a blowout loss against Robinson.
The Falcons always came bouncing back like the proverbial rubber ball.
“Carson was riding as high as they have been in a number of years when we went there with our quarterback (Brant Graham) very limited and coming off the loss at Concord,” Kraft said. “We still found a way. We were dead in the water at East Rowan, down 20, and East was definitely ready for their moment, but we still found a way. Northwest Cabarrus had tormented us for a few years, but, again, the Falcons found a way.”
Devauhn White’s punishing rushing performance out of West’s “Irish I” keyed the Carson win. Ja’mih Tucker’s pick-six was a signature moment in the East game. Graham’s surprising sprint out the backdoor was humongous against Northwest Cabarrus.
“We can talk a long time about all those great moments and all those wonderful individual efforts,” Kraft said. “But it always comes back to the team, the collective unit, the Falcons. In Mount Ulla, we’re all in it together.”
The Falcons played really well, at times. Consistency was elusive. The Falcons always are looking for ways to improve and they have two sensational sophomores in White and defensive lineman Kayden Weeks.
“It’s not like we’re satisfied with 7-5,” Kraft said. “We know we’ve got to get to work and we’ve got to get faster if we’re going to compete with the Robinsons and the Monroes in 5A.”
