South Carolina team, with familiar coaching name, joins The Observer’s Sweet 16 poll

Welcome, Indian Land High School to The Observer’s Sweet 16.

The S.C. school is not far from the Ballantyne area of Charlotte and is led by Adam Hastings, a former head coach at Providence Day and Ardrey Kell.

The Warriors have won their first two games of the season, beating York 22-20 on Aug. 23 and beating Lancaster 35-21 last week.

Indian Land, 6-5 last fall, is trying to put together its fourth straight winning season.

▪ Elsewhere, the top seven teams stayed in place, but there was some movement after that, including Charlotte Catholic jumping into the top 10 despite not playing. The Cougars’ game with Northern Durham was canceled after the Triangle-area school felt it didn’t have enough healthy players to compete.

Note: The poll is compiled by Chris Hughes, 47, who has been going to N.C. high school football games since 1979. He began coaching high school football in 1998 and began covering the sport professionally in 2002 when he launched a statewide website. In 2007, he started CarolinaPreps.com, when he began to do football rankings. Hughes, who has also done color commentary for Shrine Bowl broadcasts, has visited every school stadium in North Carolina.