The Long Beach Bearcats are ready to put last season behind them. After winning just one game in 2025, Long Beach has spent the offseason working to get better. The Bearcats say the focus has been on creating a team that is ready to compete until the clock hits zero in the 4th quarter.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe lost a lot of seniors from last year but luckily we had a bunch of juniors that have played a lot and we had some younger guys that played too. So as far as experience goes we\u2019re fairly experienced, we got quite a few of our defensive guys back\u2026 Most of our offensive lineman are back. We\u2019re not terribly inexperienced\u2026 We got a lot of guys who\u2019s played a lot of football. It starts in the offseason our seniors have been absolutely great as far as their work ethic and what they\u2019ve done and they\u2019ve kind of changed the way we go about our business here. Last year was my first year as a head coach at long beach and you know it takes time to kind of develop the culture that you want and this group of seniors have really bought into what we\u2019re doing. We\u2019ve changed a little bit offensively and defensively they just want to win so we really worked hard in the offseason and have continued to work hard that\u2019s all that we can do. If you work hard and do things the right way you know hopefully it will show up on Friday night and we\u2019ll be able to get some wins. Probably the two biggest things, in the weight room we\u2019ve gotten stronger. We\u2019ve never been as strong as we needed to be and I think that is something that we worked extremely hard in the weight room on and we got some guys that are up to numbers that would be competitive in this classification in football. I think that is one of the biggest things and we worked a lot on our speed, coach Fortenberry is our track coach and he\u2019s one of my assistance\u2019s and during the offseason we worked a lot on our speed trying to improve that and that comes with getting stronger as well,\u201d Head Coach Cody Finley said.<\/p>\n
Long Beach will also look to its returning players to provide leadership for a team determined to change its fortunes. The Bearcats know improvement will require every player to buy into the program and that starts with the work being put in before Friday nights.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve prepared well this season and we\u2019ve put in a lot of work and just hoping to leave everything out on the field this season. We hope to win some games but if we can show improvement in other areas as well I think that would be just as fine too honestly,\u201d senior running back Aidan Adkins said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m real excited, I\u2019m just ready to hit people\u2026 I\u2019m really expecting the defense to do the best it can including the offense. That\u2019s all I want from my guys they are basically my family, I just want them to try their hardest and I\u2019m going to try and push them. I love this senior group, they are my friends basically my family glad to end it off with them. We\u2019ve been putting in the work, putting in the hours, been showing up on time even a little early we just try our hardest,\u201d senior linebacker Kaden Massey said.<\/p>\n
The Bearcats know they have an opportunity to show just how much they\u2019ve grown and they\u2019re ready to see that work pay off.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah we\u2019re a lot more locked in, this senior class is a lot more serious. Last year\u2019s group played around a little bit but we\u2019re definitely more locked in and ready. We\u2019ve been family for almost six years, I love them they are my buddies,\u201d senior nose guard Brody Peeler said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis year we have a lot of seniors and I feel like we\u2019re more locked in this year so we all want to win\u2026We got to do what we got to do. I\u2019m reliable you know, last year I didn\u2019t have too many dropped passes probably one or two and I want to move that up this year and have zero drops and have around 1,000 yards hopefully. We been in the weight room everyday so I mean we\u2019re all getting bigger, stronger, and faster that\u2019s the goal to compete with the bigger schools like Pascagoula and Picayune the powerhouses you know so we\u2019re trying to get to that level,\u201d senior receiver Benjamin Alsaker said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve always had good support here even when we\u2019re not winning and that\u2019s been for a long time around here we still on Friday night theirs a lot of people in the stands. I think and I expect just like last year, things may not be going our way or whatever may happen but we\u2019re going to have guys show up and play hard. They are not going to quit, they are going to keep playing and represent the high school in the right way,\u201d\u00a0Finley said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019re going to be pretty good this season, come and show support. We\u2019ll show you what we\u2019ve been doing this offseason,\u201d Adkins said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to come hit, we\u2019re going to come play, we\u2019re going to try every possible play to just to destroy them,\u201d Massey said.<\/p>\n
\u201cCome out and watch even if we don\u2019t win. Just come out and watch and show the support, it really means a lot,\u201d Peeler said.<\/p>\n
\u201cCome out and support you know, especially being my last year so if you want to see a special game come and watch us,\u201d Alsaker said.<\/p>\n
The Long Beach Bearcats will open the 2026 season on Friday august 28th, when they defend home against Pass Christian.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Long Beach Bearcats are ready to put last season behind them. After winning just one game in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":433484,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-433483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=433483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433483\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/433484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}