Palestine Westwood football players Myron Melton, Kavian Bryant, Boston Anderson, David Russell and Brandon Russell at a fall sports media day at the CHRISTUS Orthopedics & Sports Medicine Institute on July 24.

Since Richard Bishop’s inaugural season at Palestine Westwood in 2018, the Panthers have improved by exactly one win in each season.

The Panthers went 1-9 in 2018, followed by 2-8 in 2019, 3-7 in 2020, 4-6 in 2021 and then 5-6 in 2022.

In 2022, Westwood also advanced to the playoffs for the first time since 2015. The Panthers are looking to return to the postseason in 2023 for just the sixth time since 1993 and pick up their first playoff victory since 2007. Westwood is 1-7 all time in the playoffs.

“We’ve got a lot returning,” Bishop said. “We don’t talk a lot about winning at our place. We talk a lot about process over outcome. The scoreboard and rankings are for the fans. We’re just worried about showing up day by day and getting one percent better. We want to control the controllables and make sure we are a little bit better today than we were yesterday.”

Bishop was joined by Myron Melton, Kavian Bryant, Boston Anderson, David Russell and Brandon Russell at a fall sports media day at the CHRISTUS Orthopedics & Sports Medicine Institute on July 24 to talk about the upcoming season.

“We want to win district,” said Melton, a left guard and linebacker. “We haven’t done that one in a while. And we want to make a playoff run. We haven’t done that in a long time. We haven’t gotten past the second round. We’re trying to make history at Westwood.”

“I’m young, but I act like I’m old,” said freshman quarterback Bryant. “I want to win district and make a playoff run.”

“We are trying to build off of what we did last year,” said Anderson, a junior receiver and linebacker. “We went to the playoffs, but we are trying to go further than that.”

“We just have to get everybody together and go out there and play hard,” said David Russell, a sophomore defensive back.

“I want to leave the place better than I found it,” said Brandon Russell, a senior receiver. “I want to grow every week to be a leader and finish the season strong.”

Westwood will open the season Friday at Kemp with a 7:30 p.m. kickoff.