SPRINGHILL – North Webster will need to play near perfection and get a little lucky to beat the Ouachita Lions Friday night in their own house.
North Webster (1-2) enters this game having been shut out in week 3 at Minden. The Lions are coming off a 12-point loss to Class 4A’s No. 1 team, the Neville Tigers.
“They’re big, athletic and have a lot of depth across the board,” Knights head coach John Ware said of the Lions. “Exactly what you would expect from a big 5A school. It will be a tough challenge for us this week.”
The Lions’ starting quarterback Devion Warren went down in last week’s loss to Neville with an ankle injury. His availability for this week’s contest is unknown.
“I know it was an injured ankle and that’s about all I know,” Ware said. “He’s a great player who’s being recruited by a lot of schools, but Ouachita has so many athletes they can plug another one in their.”
The North Webster offense will find the sledding tough once again this week. The Lions play exceptional defense, as evident by the way they limited Neville.
“I don’t know if there’s any holes,” Ware said. “That defense is their strong point. They’re very athletic and they move around pretty good, even up front. It comes back to can we move the chains? Can we be consistent? That’s one thing we haven’t done all year.”
If the Lions are without Warren, the North Webster defense could make this a low-scoring game. That would suit Ware just fine.
“Defensively, I think we’ll be able to stay in the game. If we can get some stops and a little production out of the offense to keep them off the field for awhile, we’ll be fine.”
The Knights gave up too many big plays in last year’s game, a 33-0 rout for the Lions.
“We can’t give them the easy ones,” Ware said. “Last year we threw a pick six against them and gave up a punt return.
Those are things you just can’t give up when you’re trying to beat a good team. We’ve had our best week of practice this week, so we’ll see what happens.”