HOWARD LAKE – It’s been a rough few weeks for the Howard Lake-Waverly-Winsted football team. It doesn’t get much easier for the Lakers this week as they host the third-ranked Pierz Pioneers for their homecoming game Friday night. Even with the struggles of late for the Lakers and facing the toughest team on their schedule to date, the message remains the same for the Lakers.
“It’s been the way it’s been every week,” HLWW coach Ben Anderson said about the mindset coming in. “Just keep getting better. We’ve been talking about practice. We got to one up our last practice. Every time we step on the field, it’s got to be a better practice than the last one. We’ve had guys rise to that challenge.”
The Lakers know what faces them come Friday night, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t ready for it. Instead of focusing on what’s against them, they’re working and focusing on the little things that they can control.
“They know we’re playing a good team, but what we need to be doing is showing improvement against good teams,” Anderson said. “We need to be able to play with that competition at the end of the year if we want to be successful come playoff time.”
The Lakers are just 1-4 entering the matchup against the Pioneers, but have slowly been playing better each week. If the Lakers want to stick with the Pioneers this week, they’ll need to improve on something they haven’t been through the first five weeks.
If the Lakers want to pull off the upset against Pierz, they’ll need to be more physical and aggressive up front on both sides of the ball.
“The big message this week has been be more physical,” Anderson said. “Going through guys instead of around guys on both sides of the ball. We get a good test right away when we play Pierz. They’re going to be physical. Are we able to match that? Right now, we are not physical enough to win a football game with the caliber of teams we are playing. It has nothing to do with their effort. Sometimes we take the path of least resistance, and that’s really not going to get you where you need to be in football.”
The Lakers will have some extra energy come Friday night as it’s their homecoming game and one of their final two games at home this season. But what comes with fun activities of homecoming, also comes distractions the Lakers will have to deal with if they want to hang with the Pioneers.
“The distractions are a headache,” Anderson said. “We’ve been prepping the kids all week. At the end of the week, it’s Friday night that everyone remembers. For us, we just got to keep grinding and making sure we’re focused on what’s important. All the other stuff is fun, but when it comes to us Friday night, that’s what’s most important. We got to take care of our end and make sure that we play as good as we can on Friday. We talked to the kids about playing with a big crowd. We want to show them what we’re capable of.”