ROCKY POINT, N.C. (WECT) – Two months after Lawrence Ches resigned as head football coach, Heide Trask High School has found his replacement: Topsail offensive coordinator Ty Lovette.
“Trask, in my mind, was always a place I thought I’d be a good fit at if it ever opened up,” Lovette told WECT Thursday. “It just kinda happened this way that it worked out. It’s exciting to take over and continue building on what coach Ches has obviously done here the past three years.”
HighSchoolOT first reported the hiring on Wednesday.
Lovette, 26, heads across Pender County from Hampstead to Rocky Point, where he’ll take over a Titans’ program coming off a 6-5 season that ended in the first round of the 2A state playoffs. Trask finished fifth in the Waccamaw Conference standings after going undefeated in nonconference play.

Topsail has now lost two coaches this week; head coach Jack Teachey left on Tuesday to become a defensive analyst at Texas Tech University. The Pirates finished 4-6 last season in 4A play, also concluding their season with a first-round playoff loss.
Lovette said he’s hoping to build on Ches’ success at Trask by using what he’s learned under Teachey and previous coaching stops, including two years as a student coach at NC State. Lovette spent two years as Topsail’s offensive line coach before his promotion to offensive coordinator in 2024.
“I’ve always been preparing for this – I didn’t necessarily know when it would come, but I’ve always had this goal of becoming a head coach,” he said.
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