Northwest beats Damascus in Maryland high school football opening week

August 02, 2024

Entering Friday, the last time many of the Northwest football team’s seniors played a meaningful snap was when they watched Wise’s quarterback kneel on Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium’s field and run out the clock in the 2019 Maryland 4A championship game.

Northwest’s players could only stroll toward their sideline, some with arms around each other, as Wise players danced in celebration on the opposite side of the field. After the postgame handshake line, the Jaguars gathered near the 35-yard line, where coaches discussed ambitions of returning to that stage.

Since then, the coronavirus pandemic wiped out the 2020 season, upperclassmen graduated and the Jaguars hired a new coach, Travis Hawkins. Despite those changes, Northwest’s vision from 2019 remains. Hawkins, 30, believes his Jaguars must go back to the state championship game and win for his initial season to be deemed successful.

“They got that championship taste,” Hawkins said. “And it’s been with them since the clock hit zero at Navy Stadium.”

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No. 13 Northwest took its first steps toward its goal with a 26-0 win over No. 11 Damascus, one of the state’s top programs, on Friday night in Germantown.

“Having a full season,” Northwest senior defensive back Derick Adames said, “we knew we had to come in and make a statement off the bat.”

Former Northwest Coach Mike Neubeiser stepped down in December to spend more time with his family. In nine seasons with Northwest, Neubeiser led the Jaguars to eight playoff trips, three Maryland 4A championship game appearances and state titles in 2013 and 2014.

Northwest (1-0) replaced him in February with Hawkins, who started as an assistant coach with the Jaguars in May 2019.

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Hawkins’s tenure had an inauspicious start. The Jaguars dropped both their games in Montgomery County’s abbreviated spring season, including a 14-10 loss to Damascus. But Hawkins saw those games as a method for him to become comfortable in his new role.

A few days after Northwest returned to practice August 11, Hawkins said, it endured a setback when roughly 40 team members needed to quarantine for 10 days after the team experienced a coronavirus outbreak. Damascus (0-1), which also hired a new coach since the 2019 season, experienced a coronavirus outbreak, too, Coach Josh Klotz said. Both coaches said their teams’ full rosters were active Friday.

This week, Hawkins texted the team’s group chat: “Not only will we make a statement for the county. But we’ll make a statement for the state.” The Jaguars did that by leading 14-0 at halftime and scoring twice more in the second half against the defending 3A champions. It was Northwest’s first victory of a journey Hawkins and his players hope lasts into December.

“I really want a ring,” Northwest senior linebacker Noah Vich said. “I want to continue the Northwest tradition of winning rings.”

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