BREWER, Maine — “Trey” Wood enjoys the contact side of football like his father before him and his grandfather before that.
But after shifting from fullback to halfback for his senior season at Brewer High School, he also is finding that running to daylight is at least equally satisfying.
The 6-foot-1, 230-pound Wood — formally known as Raymond S. Wood III — has emerged as one of the state’s top ground gainers this fall. He has exploded for 1,821 rushing yards and 27 touchdowns in nine games to lead No. 2 Brewer to its second-straight Class B North championship game.
Coach Nick Arthers’ Witches (8-1) visit top-seeded Brunswick (9-0) on Friday night seeking to avenge a loss to the Dragons in the 2015 final.
“Ever since last season ended I knew the tailback role needed to be filled, and I wanted to fill it,” said Wood, an Eddington resident who rushed for 299 yards and two touchdowns in last Friday’s 44-34 semifinal victory over Cony of Augusta.
“I set myself goals on yardage I wanted to get, and so far it’s going pretty good. The linemen have really opened up big holes to run through, and I can’t thank them enough for that.”
Wood’s football style features heavy doses of aggression mixed with more recently acquired skills designed to change what as a fullback were inevitable collisions into breakaway sprints toward the end zone.
It’s a style with genetic roots. His father, Raymond S. Wood Jr., starred at Orono High School and went on to a productive college career as a fullback at the University of Maine.
“Trey’s physicality is the No. 1 thing,” said Arthers. “Then from a mental standpoint, being able to read the defense in front of him from two different perspectives — fullback for the last two years and now tailback — is a real big change in how you see the field but he’s picked it up well.
“And he’s a leader on defense, calling our defense and setting the tone from the middle linebacker spot for the last three years,” he added. “He’s a football player through and through.”
Family affair
All three Raymond S. Woods in the family sport a football background.
Ray Wood Sr. was a lineman for Brewer during the 1960s. Ray Wood Jr. helped Orono High School earn back-to-back trips to the Class C state final in 1984 and 1985 and earned All-LTC first-team honors as a running back, defensive end-linebacker and placekicker.
Wood Jr. was among UMaine’s leading rushers as both a sophomore and junior fullback in 1987 and 1988. He played for the 1987 club that qualified for the NCAA playoffs.
“I was always good for about 3 yards and that was it,” he said.
There are other differences between Wood Jr. and Trey Wood. At 5-10, 195 pounds, Wood Jr. was smaller than his son.
But the mentality toward the sport has been passed down from generation to generation.
“He always taught me to barrel through everybody and lower my shoulders when the time comes, to punish the other person and not let the other person punish you,” said Trey Wood, who has watched videos from his dad’s playing days.
Backfield bound
While Wood seemingly was destined to play running back and linebacker, he got a taste of his grandfather’s football experience early in his career.
“When I was in third and fourth grade, there was a weight limit for running backs, and I was over the limit, so I played guard,” he recalled. “Good thing there’s no weight limit now.”
Wood earned several starts on offense and defense as a freshman at Brewer before Arthers was named the Witches’ head coach in June 2014.
“My first impressions of Trey was he was a big kid with a great football mind, great football background and that he had the potential to be a pretty good athlete,” said Arthers. “Over the course of the last couple years, he’s really come into his own.”
Wood was a defensive mainstay as a sophomore and junior but offensively last fall was more a facilitator for senior Dylan Severance.
It seemed like a natural job for the son of a college fullback.
“It kind of does look like the way I ran,” said Ray Wood Jr. “There’s not many times when he’s running the ball that he’ll go out of bounds when somebody’s coming to tackle him. He’ll always want to put that extra shot in. I always tell him to take the hit to the defender.”
When Severance graduated, Trey Wood saw an opportunity to take an even more prominent role in Brewer’s rushing attack.
“Last year it was more just pounding the ball right up the middle, but now I have to be more of a finesse runner and keep my eyes up looking for the open field,” Wood said.
One area Wood focused on last summer was enhancing his mobility.
“He really worked on foot drills to gain speed in his feet rather than just barrelling down the field,” said Arthers.
Wood has fed off the physical offensive line play of longtime friend Austin Lufkin, Cam Green, Garrett Graham, Tyler Bean, Lucas McLaughlin and tight ends Jacob McCluskey and Pedro Rodriguez, as well as fullback Zac Duncan and backup tailback Garrett Ireland.
“I’m 6½ yards back now, so I have a split-second more to read my linemen and read their blocks and read Duncan’s block,” said Wood. “There’s a little more time to build up my speed before I get to the line of scrimmage.”
Wood, who also competes in hockey and outdoor track at Brewer, hopes to follow his father’s footsteps into college football.
But the immediate goal is to overcome a Brunswick team that defeated the Witches 42-12 earlier this fall.
“They caught us off-guard with their speed,” said Wood. “We weren’t really ready for that last time, but now that we’ve played them once, we’re adjusting to that and to their style of play, so hopefully we can go down there and get the win.”
