Each is a working home page you can click through on a phone or a laptop — not a picture
of a design. All five use your real mark and your real championship photographs, and all five
were built to two rules: the site is a permanent recruiting tool for families
moving into Apex and Cary, and Instagram gets real estate, not a footer icon.
Pick the one that feels like Middle Creek. We build that, and fold in the best ideas from the
others.
5 conceptsLive and clickableReal photographyAugust 2026
How to review these
Open each link and scroll the whole page — once on a laptop and once on your
phone, because that is where most of this audience will find you.
Three questions are worth holding in mind:
Could a family in Ohio use this?
They have not moved yet. Can they tell in thirty seconds whether the program is good, when
tryouts are, and who to contact?
Will it still look alive in November?
No games, no scores. Does the Instagram wall carry it, or does the page go quiet again?
Does it look like Middle Creek?
Not “is it nice” — could you swap the logo and sell it to Green Hope, or
could it only be this program?
At a glance
Each concept was reviewed independently against three things: how well it recruits,
how alive it will look, and the accuracy and quality of the build underneath. Scored out of 30.
Concept
Character
Leads with
Score
The FeedRec
Living, phone-first
What the program just posted
23 / 30
The Record
Rigorous, institutional
Twelve seasons of evidence
22 / 30
Creek Lax
Loud, school-spirited
The program's own voice
18 / 30
Banner Night
Cinematic, ceremonial
The championship photograph
17 / 30
Front Door
Plain, instructional
A welcome and directions
16 / 30
The concepts
01
The Feed
Our recommendation
Feel
An account that posts all season
Scores
Recruiting 7 · Liveness 9 · Build 7
The only concept whose structure fixes the problem. The other four are brochures
with an Instagram section added; this one is built as a running stream, so the page has
somewhere to put something in November as well as May. The first item in that stream is a
pinned, year-round card written for a family that has not moved yet.
Strengths
“New to the area?” is pinned to the top of the screen at
every width, including a phone. Three of the other four hide theirs behind a menu.
Instagram sits in the main navigation as the brightest item on it, and the wall is the
only one that reads as an actual Instagram profile rather than a row of grey boxes.
The interest form asks “We are relocating from out of state — not
moved yet” as a real option, then asks where from and roughly when.
Before it could go live
The headline sells the website, not the program. A parent in another
state needs the school, the town, the two championships and the 2026 final first.
Roster and Contact are not yet real destinations — the roster link points back
at itself and there is no email on the page.
The graduation-year list starts at 2027, which quietly excludes a younger sibling.
Twelve seasons set out as evidence, with real typographic authority and figures that line up
in their columns. It scored highest of all five on recruiting and on build quality — it
is the best-made file here — and lowest but one on liveness.
Strengths
A sticky bar carrying “New to the area? Start here” at
every scroll position, and the relocation question is the first field of the
interest form — before the player's name.
Gives a stranger one decisive number — 231–31 across
twelve seasons — instead of a table they have to add up.
The cleanest build of the five: contrast, narrow screens and column alignment all
handled properly rather than papered over.
Before it could go live
It opens with “Twelve seasons, written down” — and an archive
is exactly what a stranger already suspects this program is.
Instagram is present but polite; it needs the weight the brief asked for.
The loudest of the five, built out of the program's own words rather than generic athletics
language — “Home of Creek Lax” and “Leaders on the field, and the
classroom”, both taken from the real Instagram bio.
Strengths
The best relocation question in the set: a “Where are you living right
now?” dropdown with five options from already zoned to
out of state, still deciding. It tells the coach how far along a move is, not
merely that one is happening.
The strongest sense that a fourteen-year-old would want to belong to it.
Before it could go live
The weakest build of the five — contrast and narrow-screen behaviour both need
work.
The navigation hides behind a menu button on most laptops, which buries the relocation
link on exactly the screens that matter.
Opens on the 2022 squad photograph full-bleed, with the championship years set over it in a
metallic reserved strictly for 2017 and 2022. The most emotionally direct of the five, and
the one a booster audience would like most.
Strengths
The best relocation copy in the set — it answers the four
questions as plain headings: “Is the program any good?”, “My son
plays. How does he get in?”, “We are not there yet.”
The most confident use of your real photography.
Before it could go live
The navigation is hidden below 1120px, so on every phone and most
laptops the relocation destination the brief asked for does not exist.
Its Contact section is a call-to-action banner with no actual contact details.
The least decorated and the most welcoming in tone. Well built, but it does the least with
both of the client's stated priorities — which is why it finished last despite being
the second-cleanest file here.
Strengths
The eligibility paragraph — the only concept that promises to
walk transfer rules through with the athletic director rather than guess at them on a
website. That is the question that keeps a relocating lacrosse family awake.
Before it could go live
Its interest form is the thinnest of the five despite the strongest copy around it.
Contact is the footer, which is precisely the failure the current site already has.
Worth opening alongside these, on a phone, so the difference is something you see
rather than something I claim.
Three pages, a footer dated 2022, no schedule, no roster, no results, Instagram as a footer
icon, and no mention anywhere that the program played for a state championship in May.
The MCHS mustang is rebuilt from your own artwork with the background removed, in two
versions so it works on black as well as white. The three championship photographs are the
real ones. Nothing here is a stock image or a drawn substitute.
Two state championships, not three
2017 and 2022. Wikipedia credits you with a 2012 title; NCHSAA's own report calls 2017 your
first, Lake Norman won in 2012, and MaxPreps has Middle Creek at 0–5 that season. No
concept shows a 2012 banner.
The 2026 final is on every page
State runners-up — 9–8 in overtime to Charlotte Catholic on 29 May, with Reed
Stack's three goals in twenty seconds. It is the biggest thing missing from your current
site and it is now the first thing these pages tell you.
Nobody built a roster
Said plainly because it is the one gap all five share: every concept promises a roster and
none delivers one, and none mentions highlight film. Whichever wins, a proper roster with
positions, graduation years and film is the first thing added — it is what a college
coach opens the site for.
Rosters, staff and posts are placeholders
Player cards, coach cards and Instagram tiles show the structure, not real people or real
posts. No captions, dates or follower counts are invented — the 1,421 followers and
262 posts are your actual numbers.
These previews are heavier than the real site
Each concept inlines every image so it works as a single file you can open anywhere. The
built site serves those images separately and will be a fraction of the weight —
still lighter than your current home page.
Two things I need you to confirm
Your classification. NCHSAA expanded from four classifications to eight for
2026, and the final you played in was the 1A–6A bracket. Your 2017 and 2022 titles were
4A. I have removed “4A” from anything describing the program today, because I do
not know which class you now sit in — you do.
Your 2026 record. I have 24–5, 12–2 in the SWAC, sixth in the
state, from MaxPreps. Say if that is wrong before it goes on a page.
What we need from you
A direction. One of the five, or a combination — “The Feed with
Banner Night's welcome copy” is a perfectly good answer.
The logo artwork at full size. What I rebuilt from the 611-pixel JPEG is
good enough for these concepts, not for a banner or a shirt.
The tryout and off-season timeline. For a family moving here in June, the
most valuable thing on the site is knowing what happens in July — and it is the one
thing I cannot look up.
Instagram access, or permission and five minutes, so the feed connects
properly rather than being screenshotted.
Roster information — names, numbers, positions, graduation years, and
any highlight film links you already have.
Photographs. The three on the current site are from 2017 and 2022. Anything
from the last two seasons, originals straight off a phone, would change these pages
completely.