As we headed towards Columbia, the temperature reading in my car hit triple digits before we even cleared the Anderson County line. Two hours on the road did nothing to bring it down. Kickoff was just as stifling. But because of the heat or in spite of it The Yellow Jackets opened just as hot.

Same script as the week before, at least at first. Hanna's defense set the tone by forcing a turnover on the game's opening drive, and while the touchdown took six plays this week instead of one, the offense cashed it in. A forced punt followed, and Hanna answered with a 77-yard drive capped by an 11-yard Brock Cole run. Halfway through the first quarter, up 14, it looked easy. Those first eight minutes turned out to be a poor preview of the next forty.

White Knoll answered with a 12-play, 80-yard drive that had everything, a fourth-down conversion and a third-and-14 that ended in a 29-yard touchdown throw. Then the game tilted. Hanna had a punt blocked, then lost a fumble, and the Timberwolves turned both into points. What had been a two-touchdown Hanna lead became a 21-14 White Knoll halftime edge. Worth filing away for later: White Knoll got a two-point conversion on its second score but missed the extra point on its third when the kick never cleared the line. The scoreboard read 21 either way. The margin those points didn't add would matter more than anyone knew at the time.

The second half opened the way the second quarter had gone. Two plays into Hanna's first drive, White Knoll forced another turnover and needed only 37 yards, which it covered in five plays to go up 27-14. The Timberwolves went back to the swinging gate that had worked earlier, chasing another two-point conversion, but this time quarterback Brayden Cress came up inches short. Hanna's special teams held the lead at 13. On a night full of small margins, that stop was maybe the biggest one.

Then Hanna did what Hanna has done all season. Three plays, 58 yards, a 53-yard Esaias Carroll run, and suddenly it was a one-score game. The math said the momentum had turned. The feeling in the stadium did not agree yet, because more than eight minutes still remained in the third quarter and White Knoll had spent the night landing the harder punches. This is the part of the season that is becoming a pattern. The defense closes the door. Over the next two White Knoll possessions Hanna forced a three-and-out and then an interception, and the offense took over with five minutes left in the third after that turnover. Eleven plays and 65 yards later, as the fourth quarter opened, Hanna led 28-27 with 11:16 to play.

The eleven minutes that followed were the kind that age a fan base. White Knoll drained more than five minutes off the clock before Hanna's defense forced a punt. Then the offense took the ball at the 6:13 mark and refused to give it back, grinding out 77 yards on 11 plays and ending it with an eight-yard run that moved the chains and let the clock wind down. Win number three. Still perfect.

Here is what I took from Lexington County that will not show up in a box score. I saw trust. Trust in players to climb out of their own mistakes, trust in a team not to fold, trust in a process that only works if everyone commits to it. I cannot put a number on that, but I have two examples that make the case. Let’s start with Brock Cole. He was the one who lost the fumble that led to White Knoll's last touchdown, and on the very first play of the next drive, the ball went right back to him. Four of the eleven plays on the game-sealing drive went to Cole, including the last one. Then there is Esaias Carroll. On the final touchdown drive, Will Mayfield hit him in the hands, the chest, the knees, every catchable surface a receiver has, with no defender within 15 yards. The touchdown was as good as scored. A half-second lapse in concentration and it was gone. The next call was a handoff to the same player, and Carroll made multiple Timberwolves miss, changed direction, and he took it 29 yards to the end zone anyway. That is not trust that he would score. That is trust in who he is.

I will admit something. As I get older, the great sports movies get to me more than they used to, and part of the reason is that the good ones are honest about what makes sports worth caring about. Watching how Hanna leaned on each other, how the staff kept feeding the players who had just stumbled, how one guy after another stepped into the moment, pulled at the same thread those movies do. It was a Week 3 nonconference game. I know that. But something worth remembering still happened out there.

Week 3 Preview

For the first time in 2026, Hanna stays home. After three straight weeks of loading up early, dressing in visitors' locker rooms, and winning somewhere other than its own field, the Yellow Jackets will host the Wren Hurricanes on Friday in the 30th meeting between these two Anderson County programs. Hanna leads the series 16-13 and has won six in a row.

Wren arrives 2-1, and the record undersells them. The Hurricanes opened with a 42-28 loss to Daniel and have been a wrecking crew since, hanging 49 on Eastside and shutting out Travelers Rest 61-0. They average 46 points a game and allow 18. Whatever got fixed after the Daniel loss took hold in a hurry.

The engine is running back Muntu Brown. As a junior last year he carried 229 times for 1,686 yards and 20 touchdowns, and this year he has picked up right where he left off with 247 yards and five scores on 35 carries so far this season. Brown is a different kind of back than anything on Hanna's schedule so far, powerful, faster at the top end than a runner his size should be, and the type who goes hunting for contact rather than avoiding it. He wants to punish tacklers early so they hesitate late. When he sits, Josiah Mosley spells him without changing the plan, a change-of-pace back who still likes to run between the tackles. Since Anthony Frate took over, Wren has built its identity around the run, and with those two behind an athletic offensive line, that identity is exactly what makes the Hurricanes dangerous.

The x-factor is the trigger man. Junior Jacob Owings is the first true dual-threat quarterback Hanna will see this year, another runner inside an already loaded ground game and a real passer when Wren wants to stretch the field. He has possession targets in Matheus Oliveira, Tyrell Lewis, and Ulysee Elmore, and even a team this committed to running will take its shots downfield. Slowing all of it will be one of the toughest jobs Hanna will face this season.

On defense, Wren flips the approach and plays fast instead of big. The Hurricanes run a three-man front and load the field with linebackers and safeties, betting speed can do what size tries to do against Hanna's ground game. This is likely the smallest front Hanna has faced and possibly the fastest. Junior defensive end JT Forrester is the one to track, quick with his hands, good at creating separation from a blocker, and better still at diagnosing a play and chasing it down. But the defense is so good because it works in unison. They communicate, they know their spots, and they tackle as a unit, which is usually what separates a fast unit from a good defense.

History says the danger here is a close one. Of the 29 prior meetings, 10 have been decided by 10 points or fewer, and Hanna is just 4-6 in those games. There is also the number that keeps surfacing this season, that Hanna is 114-3 when it scores 40 or more, and one of those three losses came against this very opponent, a 54-40 Wren win in 2014. The only other times 40 points wasn't enough were last year against Indian Land, 43-41, and against Seneca in 2015, 49-48. Against Wren, it takes a complete team performance to get the win.

Keys to Success for Hanna

Start with turnovers. Hanna has put the ball on the ground in every game this year and survived it, largely because the defense keeps answering with takeaways of its own, four on the season and at least one every week on both sides of the ball. That trade has held up so far. In a game everyone expects to be close and physical, it could put a win out of reach. A fumble on a promising drive against a team that scores this easily is not a lost possession, it is the hinge the whole night could turn on.

The second key has quietly shaped the season. Hanna gets a lot of players real snaps, ten different backs with five or more carries, and the payoff shows up after halftime, where the Yellow Jackets have outscored opponents 44-6. That depth is stockpiling experience for underclassmen that will matter once region and playoff games arrive. It cuts both ways, though. Hanna ran thin at linebacker on Friday, thin enough that Demarcus Duck, whose primary job is running back, went in to help close out the game. The luxury is that even when players go both ways, they do it in limited snaps, which keeps both sides fresh enough to finish. Wren will test whether that luxury holds against an offense built to run downhill for four quarters and if they can keep up with the stable of runners Hanna can rely on.

The last key might matter most to the people in the stands. This is the front end of a four-game homestand, five weeks counting the off week, and as ready as everyone is to be back in front of the home crowd, it is a genuine change in routine. For three straight weeks the team loaded up, traveled, and prepared away from home, twice on an earlier schedules than usual. Now the process resets. For some of the underclassmen who have been logging those first-career snaps, Friday will be the first home game of their careers. It sounds like a small thing. Coaches will tell you the small things you can control are the only ones worth talking about, and settling into a new normal quickly is one of them.

Statistically Speaking

Since Hanna is finally home, the home opener itself is worth a look, and the recent history is lopsided.

The Yellow Jackets are riding the longest home-opener winning streak in school history, nine straight seasons. From 2017 through 2025 Hanna has won the first home game of the season. The old record was eight in a row from 1969 to 1976. Beat Wren and the number climbs to ten. Under Coach Tone the home opener has been automatic, a 7-0 mark from 2019 to 2025 with a combined score of 296-88, which works out to roughly 42-13 a game with a margin near 30 points.

Wren has been the home-opening opponent once before, last year's 40-27 Hanna win, so Friday is only the second meeting between these two in that particular slot.

Look further back and the home opener was far from a lock. Across 64 completed seasons Hanna is 37-26-1 in its first home game, a shade under .600. The dominance is a recent development.

Getting here has been the strange part. This is only the second season since 1962 in which Hanna's first home game did not arrive until Game 4. The other was 2021, when a 3-0 team came home from three road trips and buried Easley 62-14. That team arrived hot and stayed that way. The same way this team is hoping to.

Wrap-Up

Three wins and no losses, and for some people that is the entire story. Fine. The Yellow Jackets checked the box. What matters more is how they checked it, three times over, late and physical and leaning on the defense when the game turned heavy. That is a specific way to win, and it tends to travel well into October and November. Better to be the team that scraped one out than the one still wishing for a final chance at it.

Now the schedule finally does Hanna a favor and hands over a home field, then takes the favor right back by sending Wren through the door averaging 46 points a game and a running back who treats tacklers like a personal grievance. The homestand that could define the season opens against the stiffest test of it. If this team is what its first three weeks suggest, this is where it starts proving it, at home, where the underclassmen finally get to hear the crowd, and where a 30th meeting with an old county rival will tell us more than the first three games could.

We hope to see every Yellow Jacket fan in those home statnds this Friday! If you can't make it, follow along on X and Facebook, with live stat updates on Exceeding Stats. Check back next week for the next Hanna Between the Hashes.