WELDON — The Weldon Chargers’ student athletes’ experience a banner year in 2008-2009. One would be hard pressed to pick a year recently that can rival the success the small school located right here in the Roanoke Valley had. The Chargers class of 2009 will leave the school in a few weeks as one of the most decorated classes to ever walk the halls there.

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The success started in the fall with the Weldon football team finishing second in the Tar Roanoke Conference, advancing to the third round of the NCHSAA 1A playoffs and ended last week with the Chargers baseball team, who made it to the post season for the first time in 32 years. In between, Weldon competed for a state championship in boys basketball, fell one game short in girls hoops and in the process brought life to the small community located just off Interstate 95. “This was one of the best years in athletic history,” senior Chris Epps said. “Our school has benefited with great success.”

Weldon City Schools Superintendent Dr. Elie Bracy added, “this season brought the community together.”

But perhaps Charger Athletic Director Donnell Handsome put it best, “This year has been special. It’s just something about this year. You could see the kids develop and could tell how they were working that this was going to be a special year in all of the sports.”

The Weldon football team lost just three games all season and were two games away from the state championship, knocking off defending state champs Plymouth High School along the way. The Chargers then rode the wave of the that success were not one, but two teams caught the winning fever, cruising through the regular season and taking all the Weldon faithful on a wonderful ride that ended in Greenville for the Lady Chargers and in Raleigh for the boys, who finished with the best record in school history at 28-2. The Lady Chargers seniors leave Weldon having only lost 11 games in four seasons on the hardwood.

“It was a good year for us,” Handsome said. “The kids worked hard ... when you come out and work hard it pays off.”

The payoff came in the form of hardware for many Weldon student athletes ... and lots of it. At the school’s athletic banquet, senior Shontel Mallory left with a handful of trophies, meanwhile the Faulcon twins, Desmond and Demond, had a table full of trophies just between the two of them, leaving their mother Kim shaking her head and trying to figure out where to store it all. The Chargers basketball team was also given rings for finishing as the 1A state runner ups.

But the biggest surprise of all the athletic squads may have been the baseball team, which made it to the playoffs for the first time since 1977, way before any of the players were even born. Handsome assured all the success was a direct result of the athletes’ work off the field. “We had a good bunch of kids this year. We stayed on them about being in the weight room and it paid of,” he said. “We have to continue to push them in the classroom and in the weight room and we had some kids that did a pretty good job.”