After 678 days of waiting, the drought is over in Hampstead.
The Pirates are victors once again.
Topsail football finally shed the weight of a winless 2025 season Thursday, Aug. 20, toppling Dixon 20-8 to snap a 14-game losing spell and bring winning football back to Hampstead for the first time in nearly two years.
It was the first priority for new coach TJ Albert: Win, and win right away.
The first-year Pirates leader, who spent more than a decade coaching in Charlotte, preached from the start that 2026 would be different. The energy would change. A Topsail program often regarded as an easy win would no longer carry the weight of its recent past.
But
Albert and his players knew words could only do so much.
"Out of all the games I’ve coached in high school, this was by far the most important game,” Albert said. “To me, (Winning this game) was everything. It was very important to the psyche of the community, the kids (Even) our administration.”
The Pirates reignited a flame of pride Thursday against the same team that crushed their hopes a year ago.
Topsail came painstakingly close to opening 2025 with a victory before Dixon escaped with a 42-40 overtime win. The Pirates didn't know it then, but it was the closest they would come to winning all season.
They scored just 66 points across their final nine games, barely more than a touchdown per week.
That Week 1 loss wasn't just another defeat. It was the beginning of a season Topsail players haven't forgotten.
A year later, the Pirates made sure history wouldn't repeat itself.
Freshman running back Kyle Albert, son of coach TJ, darted around the field all night, rushing for 197 yards and scoring all three of the team’s touchdowns.
"We’re coming for it all,” Kyle said. “We were all prepared for coming out here and just getting the dub, nothing else.”
Albert has another son on the Pirates squad, Zach, who plays wide receiver and had a big night of his own. None of the Alberts, however, lived through the pain of Topsail's winless 2025 season. Players like senior Preston Plunkett did.
Plunkett knows what 14 straight losses felt like. He also knows how little opposing teams have come to expect from Topsail football.
"We’ve been working for this all offseason long,” the linebacker said. “The culture has definitely changed. We’re all focused; we all want to win.”
One win doesn't fix everything. There's still plenty of work ahead for the Pirates, but Week 1 has already given Topsail something it desperately needed: a reason to believe.
“It’s not the same old Topsail,” Albert said. “We’ll continue to get better; we’re not going to quit, we’re going to keep fighting.”
This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: Topsail football ends 14-game losing streak in statement opener
