The power of a good week of practice was on full display Friday night at Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe High School.
Coming off a loss to Heritage in which the Warriors imploded on several occasions, Bo Campbell put his team through a rigorous week of work. After Friday's 42-0 win over Gordon Lee at Tommy Cash Stadium, coach and players agreed it was time well spent.
"Our defense played great in the first half, especially after the effort we had last week," Campbell said after the Warriors held the Trojans to 164 total yards and caused four turnovers. "They realized we played terribly on defense last week, so they worked hard in practice this week and really turned it around. Offensively, we had several turnovers last week that killed us, so we worked all week on protecting the ball."
Though LFO (1-1) managed just two first downs in the opening half, a pair of punt returns for touchdown - 43 yards from Giovanni Barroso and 61 from senior Ruddy Ware - and a 12-yard scoring drive set up after a fumble on a kickoff gave the Warriors a 21-0 halftime lead.
"Special teams are an important part of every day in practice for us, and our guys take pride in them," Campbell said. "We've got some players like Giovanni and Ruddy who can bring them back, and the guys did a great job blocking."
Following Barroso's dazzling return, Nathan Williams recovered the fumble on the ensuing kickoff and two plays later scored from 5 yards out. The Trojans (1-1) put together their best drive of the evening on their next possession, moving from the 6 to the LFO 25 before a 2-yard loss on a tackle by James Beddington and a delay penalty led to a turnover on downs at the 32.
Later, Ware fielded a punt at the 39, made one cut and set sail for a touchdown that seemed to take the wind out of the Trojans.
It got worse quickly in the third quarter after Tucker Miller's pass was tipped and intercepted by Josh Haveman. Williams, held to 20 yards in the first half, did most of the damage on the drive and eventually scored from a yard out. He added another score later in the quarter on a 41-yard screen pass from Malachi Powell.
"We did not play nearly as good as we could last week, and we had a tough week of practicing fixing all the issues," said Williams, who had 91 total yards. "I'm really proud of the offense. Malachi really stepped up and played a great game, and we've got a ton of weapons with Giovanni, Ruddy and KK (Deandre Rowe)."
Barroso added 44 yards on four carries for LFO, which has an off week coming up before the start of play in Region 6-AAA. Sophomore Kaleb Vaughn led Gordon Lee with 55 yards rushing, with Miller adding 33 and Brody Cobb 31.
LFO's Jacob King helped lead the the defense with a pair of interceptions.
Contact Lindsey Young at lyoung@timesfreepress.com or at 423-757-6296; follow on Twitter @youngsports22