Garland High School at Lake Highlands, 7:30 p.m., KXEZ-FM 92.1
After two consecutive weeks on the road at Mesquite’s Hanby Stadium, Lake Highlands (1-1) will be in it’s own back yard Friday night against the Garland Owls (1-1).
“That’s been one of the big rallying points over the past week,” Scott Smith, LHHS head football coach said. “The guys want to win in front of their home crowd and perform in front of their own fans at home. It’s always fun to play a game at the Boneyard.”
Last year the Wildcats went to Garland’s Williams Stadium and won what Smith called “one of the most exciting high school football games you could be part of,” 7-6.
Late in the game quarterback Ricky Zorn scored a touchdown, capping a long drive to take the 7-6 lead. Then cornerback David Green intercepted a pass late to seal the win.
Running back Desmond Roland was limited to 58 yards on 11 rushes, but the team totaled 403 total yards of offense.
“I think they may come in with a little bit of a chip on their shoulder this year,” Smith said. “Last year they had something like 11 Division I athletes on their team. And we beat’em.”
The Owls are powered by a three pronged attack that came back with a 21-point fourth quarter to win 41-34 against Duncanville last week.
Quarterback Dawson Hadnot threw for 223 yards and a touchdown in the game. Running back/receiver Ja’Taveon Green had two touchdowns on the ground and one in the air and combined for 174 yards of offense. And Jordan Spencer rushed for 113 yards on the night.
“They ran into a buzz-saw against Marcus in their first game,” Smith said. “But Garland has a talented team.”
Defensively, Smith says Garland likes to bring a variety of blitzes, and likes to blitz from everywhere on the field. That should test the entire offense from the line, to the receivers, to sophomore quarterback Michael Ketchmark.
“It’s good for him to be exposed to this though,” Smith said. “He has to be keen on recognizing what they are bringing and make good reads and where he can expose the defense. Our line has to know where to protect. Our running backs have to know which hole to hit and to hit it quick. And out receivers have to know what zones they can set up in when a blitzer leaves a part of the field vacant. This is a great challenge for our offense.”
Roland is fourth in the area with 358 rushing yards, and Ketchmark has himself and receiver DeVonte Sunwenghan in the top tier of quarterback receiver combos in the area as well.
Smith was not quick to wipe away the 48-21 loss to Mesquite Horn from last Friday. In fact he wanted the team to learn from it.
“That’s why I like playing good teams like that,” Smith said. “We found things we need to work on and get better at. But we also saw the bright spots that we saw from the first week stay bright. And we got better throughout the week as we emphasized some of those things.”
