Lakeland senior quarterback Zach Super produced a performance against Indian River on Oct. 27 that could best be described by his surname, and it helped him draw 236 votes to become the Suffolk News-Herald Player of the Week.

He completed 21 of his 36 passes for 383 yards and four touchdowns to help the team continue its state title pursuit.

“The offensive line was blocking great the whole game,” Super said. “They were giving me a lot of time, so I was just standing in there. With the way (the Braves) were playing defense, they were just giving me all day back there, so I was just throwing to whoever was ever open, and I was just picking them apart, basically.”

Super affirmed that it was statistically the best game of his career. Though he has been putting up good numbers throughout the season, there has been a definite ramp-up to his current level of play. With his season-ending knee injury from last year still in mind, Super crossed an important threshold on Homecoming night against Grassfield.

“At the beginning of the year, he started off slow,” Lakeland head coach Glenwood Ferebee said. “I think he was a little afraid of his knee, with the knee brace on. If you’ve noticed, ever since the Grassfield game, he took the knee brace off, and he’s been playing comfortably ever since.”

“I was just thinking, I was like, ‘You know, it’s been a year. I’m ready to take this thing off,’” Super said. “Actually, (the Grassfield game) was the best game so far this year, and then I’ve come out against Great Bridge and Indian River and had three great games in a row. ”

Aside from a potent passing attack, Ferebee explains what Super, firing on all-cylinders, means for opposing defenses.

“It’s more or less like, ‘OK, Zach Super is getting back to his old self, so you can’t load up the box now.’ So it creates running lanes for (senior running back) Raekwon (Johnson).”

Super started his football career, like many kids, playing Pop Warner.

“I was about 13 or 14 years old,” he said. “Believe it or not, I never really wanted to play quarterback. I always thought the receiver was the guy who got all the credit for the touchdowns. I always wanted to play receiver.”

When coaches saw him throw the ball, however, his football fate was sealed.

“My coaches basically told me if I didn’t play quarterback, there’d be no point in me playing at all,” he said. “I could just throw the ball so much better than most people at that age.”

His proficiency continues as a senior, and when he takes the field, two motivators spur him on. The first involves thinking about the rough elements of his past and negative things that he has heard and using them as motivation. The second motivator is his grandmother, who is battling brain cancer.

“I look up to my grandmother, the way she fights cancer, and I use it the same way on the football field to fight out there,” he said.

As far as the future is concerned, he is weighing college options, but has definite ideas of what he will do wherever he ends up.

“Of course, I’ll play college football there as far as it’ll take me, but I want to major in education,” he said, with an eye toward teaching physical education. “I wouldn’t mind later on becoming a coach as well. I’m one of those players, I love being around the game. I think that’s another thing that helps me play well.”