Lawton High football coach Ryan Breeze met with The Lawton Constitution’s Kevin Green ahead of the Wolverines’ Thursday night matchup with Class 6A-II No. 5 Del City (6-2, 4-1).
Breeze discussed the shootout win over Choctaw, Elijah Reyes’ career night and celebratory T-shirts.
Week 8 debrief
Wipe your brows, LHS fans.
The Wolverines escaped Bill Jensen Field in Choctaw with a crucial district win, moving one step closer to their sixth-straight playoff berth. The Yellowjackets gave LHS quite a run, though.
Choctaw won just about every facet of the game except the score, outgaining the Wolverines by more than 200 yards with 570 yards total to go along with 35 first downs. It took an extraordinary few plays on special teams and defense from LHS to secure the victory.
The Yellowjackets did most of their damage on the ground, rushing for 415 yards and six touchdowns. Corey Williams was especially a problem for the LHS defense as he led the way, finishing with 264 yards and three touchdowns on only 25 carries.
In all, LHS gave up nearly 7.2 yards per carry.
Breeze wasn’t happy with his team’s performance.
“That’s too much,” Breeze said. “We have to do a better job up front and slow that down. In our defense, they’re really big up front and have a really good scheme. It’s tough scheme to stop, especially when they go fast. That’s the fastest tempo we’d seen, but with all that being said, we have to do a better job of stopping the run.”
Reyes your hands
Despite the defense’s struggles, Elijah Reyes almost single-handedly put the Yellowjackets down for good.
The junior scored two defensive touchdowns in 1 minute, 18 seconds during the third quarter, extending the Wolverines’ five-point advantage to 18 points in what seemed like no time at all.
Those scores ended up being the difference, for LHS won by only 10 points, 54-44.
Reyes hadn’t recorded any touchdowns during his varsity career until Thursday night, and Breeze said he was ecstatic for Reyes’ fortunes.
“He’s so fun to coach because he’s always in a good mood,” Breeze said. “When you see him in the hallway during second hour, he’s laughing and he’s upbeat. I was so happy for him because he plays so hard, and he plays with a great motor and a lot of passion. It was a cool deal to see him get the first one, and four plays later he gets a second one, so that was really cool.
“You could tell by the excitement on the sidelines how much he’s loved by his teammates. It was a really neat situation.”
Get your T-shirts
It has been quite an exciting year for LHS, and there are a couple of accomplishments worth celebrating.
First, the Wolverines became the first team in Oklahoma history to reach 800 wins with a 41-32 win over MacArthur on Sept. 7. A week later, they secured their second-straight city championship in a 42-13 drubbing of Eisenhower.
LHS commemorated the achievements by having T-shirts made for the players so they can flaunt their feats to all of Lawton.
The red shirts feature a white outline of the state of Oklahoma between a large black font outlined in white reading “WOLVERINE FOOTBALL”. The inside of the Oklahoma logo reads, “1st Oklahoma team with 800 wins” in black font with a white outline.
Under the word “FOOTBALL” reads “2018 City Champs” in a white font with no outline.
Breeze said the shirts are on sale for whoever is interested in having their own.
“We got them Wednesday (Oct. 17) and bought them for the kids,” Breeze said. “We wanted to get a city champs shirt, and we wanted to tie in the 800 wins, so they’re fired up. We gave one to every kid, and most of them wore them to school.”
Mistaken identity
Miles Davis rushed for 300 yards and four touchdowns on 37 carries against Choctaw, but for a short time in the second quarter, Davis was mistaken for someone else.
At some point early in the game, Davis’ No. 3 jersey was ripped, forcing him to assume No. 17 for the remainder of the game. However, the change wasn’t made known to the announcer, who went on to identify Davis as sophomore Donovan Dorsey, who normally wears that number.
Davis had six carries for 100 yards at the time of the switch, and he ran the ball another 10 times for 86 more yards before press box workers were finally notified at halftime.