By LORI LYONS, Journal Sports
If not for an unfortunate penalty in the final seconds, the Lakeview Gators may have gotten their first win of the season last week against Northwood. Instead, the Gators fell 34-32 to drop to 0-8 on the year.
Now the Gators are putting their hopes on tonight’s game against Montgomery (4-4, 2-1). It’s the Gators’ last home game of the season and had to be rescheduled to Halloween night due to a conflict. Gators coach Lawrence Seawood hopes there will be no last-second scares.
“Penalties are part of the game,” first-year coach Seawood said. “It is what it is.”
It has been a challenging season for Lakeview, which went through the first five games against a tough non-district schedule without scoring a single point. The Gators were scoreless in six of their eight games, finally putting up 28 points in a 60-28 loss to LaSalle on Oct. 11. Last week they scored a season-high 32 points, making Seawood proud.
“They played hard and did everything we asked them to do,” he said.
This week Lakeview faces a Montgomery team that lost to Logansport 40-8 last week.
St. Mary’s, which also has been on the wrong end of a last-second penalty that led to a loss to Montgomery two weeks ago, got a solid 30-0 win over LaSalle last week. It was the Tigers’ first defensive shutout of the season.
“The defense stood up and did what they’re supposed to do all the way through,” Tigers coach Kedrin Seastrunk said.
Friday the Tigers travel to Lena to face Northwood in a matchup of teams with identical overall and district records (3-5, 1-2). Seastrunk may go with the offensive scheme from last week in which the Tigers opened things up a bit more. Quarterback Braylon Norman threw three touchdown passes and ran for another score.
Seastrunk is going into this game confident because his team has confidence.
“I think they see it,” he said. “They understand the feeling they with the preparation and the experience. I think if we handle our business we should come out on top,” he said. “If we go up on them early and do what we’re supposed to do, we should be fine.”
Northwood and St. Mary’s will collide next week concluding the regular season.
Contact Lori at sportslyons@gmail.com