New Richmond –
Team: Wyoming East
2024 Recap
Wyoming East couldn’t turn its fortunes around in the win column last year, suffering through injuries en route to a 1-9 finishing, marking the fifth straight season of two or fewer wins for the Warriors.
Gone is starting QB Gaige Cooper, who led them in numerous statistical categories.
2025 Outlook
The positive for the Warriors is they were able to get younger players such as Grayson Ashley and James Woods live reps.
“You’re looking at Grayson again,” Wyoming East head coach Steven Cook said. “He’s had a good offseason and a good preseason. He had a really nice sack in our scrimmage against River View. You look on the defensive line opposite of him we have James Wood who’s about 6-foot-5, 250 pounds. He’s a load and he played more snaps as a freshman last year than Grayson did on account of injuries. On the line we’ve got a couple guys who’ve had experience the last couple of years. Caleb Hatfield and Gabe Shrewsbury have been through the fire and the progress sis really showing.”
The Warriors, who have played a number of different players at quarterback over the last three seasons project to do the same again.
Gaige Cooper, now graduated, led the Warriors 628 yards passing last season, connecting with Wood for 194 yards. Cooper was also the team’s leading rusher with 500 yards. Miken Smyth also returns and will likely see some snaps at quarterback after throwing for 91 yards but Cook admits his value at other positions make take priority as he had over 300 scrimmage yards last year.
“Right now it depends on what kind of offense we’re going to run or sets we’re showing,” Cook said. “For the time being Cruze Cooper, he had a lot of experience in middle school playing quarterback. Miken, we’ll be using him more as a tight end and in the backfield. Right now he’s too good of a weapon for us doing that than handing the ball off.
“We’ll run the ball and pass off of play action. If we pass 20 times, it’s either workin or we’re not on schedule.”
The expectations for this team are to keep building and lay the foundation for a sustainable program. Despite the win total, Cook felt like his team took a step forward last year, going 0-3 in one-score games.
“For me, we’re definitely a better team this year, there’s no doubt about it,” Cook said. “The expectation is we’ve got to win some ball games. My first year it was a bloodbath. We won two games and even though we only won one last year we were much better. We closed the scoring margin down almost 20 points. I expect to see more of that progress. I think we have four, maybe five games last year that were decided by a touchdown or less.”
Changes to Wyoming East’s schedule include dropping Van, Liberty Harrison (closed) and Shady Spring in place of Class A semifinalist Tug Valley, Mingo Central and Sissonville.
The Warriors will kickoff their season Friday, August. 29 when they host rival Westside.
| 1 | 08/29/25 | 7:00PM | H – | WESTSIDE | – | |||
| 2 | 09/05/25 | 7:00PM | A – | PETERSBURG | – | |||
| 3 | 09/12/25 | 7:00PM | A – | MEADOW BRIDGE HIGH | – | |||
| 4 | 09/19/25 | 7:00PM | A – | TUG VALLEY | – | |||
| 5 | 09/26/25 | 7:00PM | A – | MINGO CENTRAL | – | |||
| 6 | 10/03/25 | 7:00PM | A – | MOUNT VIEW HIGH SCHOOL | – | |||
| 7 | 10/10/25 | 7:00PM | H – | PIKEVIEW | – | |||
| 8 | 10/17/25 | 7:00PM | A – | SISSONVILLE | – | |||
| 9 | 10/24/25 | 7:00PM | H – | SUMMERS COUNTY HIGH SCHOOL | – | |||
| 10 | 10/31/25 | OPEN | – | |||||
| 11 | 11/07/25 | 7:00PM | H – | LIBERTY (RALEIGH) | – |
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