It’s possible there is no more difficult three-game stretch on the 2025 West Virginia high school football schedule than the one Herbert Hoover will conclude on Thursday.

The first two of that trio – scrimmages against Huntington and Martinsburg, consensus contenders in Class AAAA – didn’t count.

The next one will: a fixture at Independence in a matchup of programs growing accustomed to deep postseason runs.

The Huskies, last year’s WVSSAC Class AAA state runner-up, are after another of those. Hence, the stout tests out of the gate.

“We feel like we benefit a lot from that,” Hoover coach Joey Fields said Monday. “Of course, if you don’t do well, you can say, ‘Oh well, [the competition] is not gonna get much better than that throughout the season,’ and if you do do well, you build a lot

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