Tonight the varsity football teams of Lackey High School in Indian Head and Westlake High School in St. Charles square off for the 3A South Regional Finals. It looks to be a hell of a game.
“We’re looking forward to a good game. Westlake’s a pretty good team,” admitted Lackey’s Head Coach, Doug Lamb, “so we’re going to work on playing flawlessly.”
“We’ve had a great week of practice so far. We’re looking forward to having a rematch. The biggest thing we’ve gotta do is not turn the ball over,” said Westlake Athletic Director, Dominic Zaccarelli, referring the four turnovers the team gave up in its first four minutes of Westlake’s regular season game against Lackey.
After loosing their first two games of the season, Lackey’s varsity football team went on to win their next nine games. Coach Lamb told The Bay Net he was impressed with his players during the practices immediately after the second loss.
“[The players] refocused and regrouped. We went back to work and dug ourselves out of the hole we’d gotten ourselves into. The Stone win turned the corner for us,” Coach Lamb said.
Zaccarelli told the Bay Net that pivotal moments for the Westlake team came early in the season during games against McDonough and Lackey. In both games, Westlake came from behind and won.
“[They showed an] ability to persevere in tough situations. No matter what the game or situation they’ll keep fighting.” said Zaccarelli. “We’ve got a lot of good players. Every week it seems like somebody else steps up to make the plays.”
Lackey entered the regional playoffs as the #1 seed. However, an unfortunate record keeping error was discovered right before the semi-final game last weekend. Because the Lackey team unknowingly played three games with an academically ineligible player, they had to forfeit those games. Their record was still good enough to earn the team a spot in the playoffs, but not the home field advantage.
Lamb said the players didn’t let the forfeitures get them down. Lackey beat Chopticon High School 21 – 3 in the regional semi-final game last Friday.
Westlake entered the playoffs in the #2 seed after having “romped over virtually everything in its path this season”, according to sportswriter Andy States of SMACsportsnet.com.
Westlake beat Huntingtown 35 – 0 in its regional semi-final last weekend. Westlake’s only loss of the season came via Lackey’s hands earlier this month, a 32 – 27 loss.
The Lackey Chargers and the Westlake Wolverines face off for the final time this season at Westlake High School tonight at 7 p.m. The winner will play the 3A North champion next weekend.