After opening the season by winning four of their first five games in 2018, the Pineville Mountain Lions lost their final six games of the season to finish with a record of 4-7. However, first-year head coach Randy Frazier intends to change that.

After a spring and summer’s worth of practices thus far, Frazier likes what he has seen out of his team.

“I’m seeing a lot of guys that are willing to come out here and work hard,” said Frazier. “Numbers are pretty high right now. Our participation has exceeded expectation, but we aren’t surprised. Coach Elam did a great job here and left this program in good shape. We’ve got a lot of guys coming out and working hard, and we’re excited about it.”

With the Mountain Lions just now getting to the thick of their practice schedule, Frazier is looking forward to dissecting and analyzing his team with more depth.

“We will really know what we’ve got when we lace them up for that first game and put the pads on. (Wednesday was) our last day of ‘shells,’ so we are getting into the good stuff now. We’ve got quite a few returning lineman from last season, we’ve got returning backs, (and) we’ve got several transfers that have transferred into our school that look to be promising players. We are excited with our whole program right now.”

With so many returning players, Frazier feels that the leadership brought by upperclassmen will really help his team improve.

“It does wonders for us to have veteran players,” said Frazier. “You can look at today for an example. We’ve got one guy on vacation and two are sick today. All of them texted me and let me know what was going on, instead of just not showing up. We’ve got a couple of guys that are a little banged up at the moment, but they’re still here on the field with us just like any other day.

“That in itself shows the level of maturity of this bunch. They are going to take care of business in the classroom, in the community and on the field this season. It’s really impressive the way they show up and work hard. I like what I’m seeing so far.”

The Mountain Lions open the season at McCreary County Central at 7:30 p.m. on Aug. 23. The last time these two met was a barn-burning 59-36 victory for McCreary Central in 2016.