New Gwinnett high school football team celebrates first win

Gwinnett County’s newest football program, Lanier High, is considering playing more varsity games next year.

The Buford school opened its doors this year and opted to play a non-region schedule that had only one varsity opponent — Mountain View, which defeated Lanier 55-7 two weeks ago.

Lanier (1-3) plays the rest of its games against JV and freshmen teams, with the squad defeating Meadowcreek’s JV 42-12 for the program’s first win last weekend.

“We’ll do our evaluation at the end of the year and see what we can pull together,” Lanier coach Billy Wells said. “It’s a two-year cycle with [scheduling], so most people have committed to a ‘home-and-away’ during that cycle. Once our season is over, we’ll take a look at things and try to determine what we can do with what’s available.”

Wells said he would like to add a couple of varsity games next year, with the new opponents likely to be other new schools in the metro area or out-of-state teams.

“It would be hard to fill up a full varsity schedule,” Wells said. “I expect our schedule to predominantly remain the same next year.”

Lanier High has 70 players on its roster, including 60-percent freshmen.

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