Inclement weather convinced most local schools to cancel their weekly Friday night trip to the gridiron, and now King’s Fork and Lakeland high schools are getting ready for some Monday night football if they can get it in.

Weather could still continue to be a factor on Monday, so King’s Fork coach Joe Jones said, “First and foremost, I’m hoping we’ll be able to play.”

He would have preferred to get the game in this past Thursday, but it did not work out.

“Probably the toughest thing about playing Monday is the fact that we weren’t able to practice Thursday or Friday or today and tomorrow,” Jones said on Saturday. “Never excited about going into a game missing four days of practice prior to, but there’s going to be no excuses.”

Another difficult thing he noted about playing Monday is that the next game comes quickly, only four days later. But that game will be at Lakeland High School, and Jones acknowledged the Cavaliers are in the same situation, and he expressed no doubt that his players would be up for that cross-city rivalry game.

The current circumstances bring into sharp focus an important requirement of coaches, new and old alike.

“Playing on a Monday night is different, and it’s my job to do what I can to get those guys focused,” said Lakeland coach Kevin Knight, a first-year head coach.

In his 21st year as a head coach, Jones said he has had about five or six Monday games and noted they are a little more challenging to get his players ready for.

“It just breaks up the routine, and especially when you’re on the road traveling, it just breaks up the routine a little bit, but these guys are anxious to play,” he said. “I think any player would rather play a game Monday night probably than practice.”

Knight noted the regularity of the practice schedule should help his players have the right mindset because after school lets out each day, “their focus is on football anyway.”

 

Lakeland (1-3) at Deep Creek (1-3) — Monday at 7 p.m.

Last season: Cavaliers 28, Hornets 6

 

The Cavaliers are fresh off their first victory of the season, a 13-10 road defeat of Great Bridge High School, giving them momentum.

“We feel good, we feel confident coming into this week,” Knight said. “We made a couple changes coming into the game for Monday.”

One of them involved moving junior defensive lineman Demetrius McKinney to running back, and “he might get a couple carries against Deep Creek,” Knight said.

The coach said Lakeland will also be bringing back some formations for this particular game that it has not used for a while.

Knight said now that the Hornets have had the same head coach for a little while, they are running his system better.

“I think they play with more confidence then they have in the past couple of years,” he said.

He expects Deep Creek to feature a balanced offensive attack.

 

King’s Fork (3-1) at Great Bridge (0-4) — Monday at 7 p.m.

Last season: Bulldogs 55, Wildcats 19

 

Jones’ confidence in his players only grew after they came together to produce a 14-6 rain-soaked home win on Sept. 25 against Western Branch High School.

“They showed me a lot last week in how they played,” Jones said.

Great Bridge has seen some players transfer away, its head coach recently stepped down and it has a winless record, but Jones regards the Wildcats as a bit of a scary team.

”They’re getting better each week,” Jones said, adding that they are hungry to do well. “They were very close, came up short against Lakeland last week.”

He noted that for the last three weeks, they have been working at getting better running the Wing-T, an offense that relies upon misdirection.

“They’ve got good coaches that know how to teach it,” Jones said, alluding to coaches he knows personally. “We’ve just got to play disciplined defensively.”