Lions Prepare for Homecoming Rivalry With Groveton

By Greg Ritchie

Messenger Reporter

LOVELADY — Homecoming brings plenty of excitement on its own. Add a familiar rival from just up the road and a Lovelady team eager to respond to a close loss, and the Lions have plenty to play for Friday, Oct. 23.

Lovelady will host the Groveton Indians at 7 p.m. in The Messenger’s Game of the Week. The Lions enter the matchup at 4-3 overall and 2-1 in district after falling 15-8 to Leon on Friday, Oct. 16.

For Lovelady head coach Jim Bird, the rivalry includes a personal connection. He graduated from Groveton and played football there, giving him firsthand knowledge of the program his Lions will face on homecoming night.

“We know all those guys. They know us,” Bird said. “I graduated from Groveton and played over there.”

That familiarity adds emotion to a game Bird expects both teams to approach with plenty of determination.

“It’s our homecoming game, and both sides are going to want to win,” he said.

The Indians have Bird’s attention regardless of their record. He said Groveton has shown a willingness to compete against teams favored to beat them, and he expects the Lions to have to earn whatever they get Friday.

“They’ve made some really good football games out of some games where they were a pretty big underdog coming into the game,” Bird said. “There’s some fight in them.”

For Lovelady, preparation begins with finding the consistency that was missing against Leon.

The Lions had delivered a 38-0 victory over Centerville on Friday, Oct. 9, a performance Bird described as one in which his team executed at a high level.

“We blocked well. We tackled well. We just had a great night,” he said. “Our kids were wired up and ready to go.”

Against Leon, Lovelady got an immediate lift by returning the opening kickoff for a touchdown. The Lions followed that with a defensive stop and another drive deep into scoring territory.

Bird said a run of about 20 yards appeared to produce another touchdown, but a holding penalty brought it back and left Lovelady facing third-and-15.

“We felt like it was a good block,” Bird said.

He wondered how the game might have unfolded had the Lions been able to take a two-score lead, but said overcoming those setbacks was part of the team’s responsibility.

“We’ve got to battle to overcome those kinds of things,” he said.

Bird credited Leon’s players and coaches for their performance rather than placing the loss on that call. He said Lovelady had other opportunities but did not block or tackle as well as it had against Centerville.

“First off, we’ve got to give credit to Leon and their kids and their coaches,” Bird said. “They played their behinds off. They played hard, and they played well.”

The Lions did a good job containing Leon’s running game, Bird said, but the Cougars found scoring opportunities through the air. On one touchdown, a Lovelady defensive back slipped and fell, leaving a receiver open.

“Leon’s a quality opponent. We feel like we didn’t play our best game,” Bird said. “We feel like we could play a lot better.”

That leaves the Lions working toward a more dependable performance from week to week. Bird wants the standard to remain the same regardless of the opponent, even when a rivalry and homecoming make that easier to say than to do.

“Our goal is about taking another step forward,” he said.

Bird described the approach as preparing for a “faceless opponent,” keeping the players’ attention on their own responsibilities instead of the other team’s record or the emotion surrounding the matchup.

“We really have to focus on us and do what we’re capable of on a snap-by-snap basis,” he said.

Maintaining that standard has become more challenging as injuries have reduced an already thin roster.

Bird said two players suffered substantial injuries in the Centerville win. One sustained a season-ending ACL tear and was scheduled for surgery this week. Another, a senior, hopes to return before the end of his final season.

The limited depth has made it difficult to give players a break, even in a game where Lovelady had built a comfortable lead.

“We really would have liked to get some subs in, but we don’t have a lot of subs,” Bird said. “It was hard to get guys off the field.”

Still, Bird said the players have stepped up. Staying healthy remains a priority as the Lions prepare for the remaining district games.

“We’ve got to take care of business first,” he said. “But then we’ve got to be able to stay healthy when the time comes.”

As homecoming week began, Bird expressed confidence in the people doing that preparation. He praised a coaching staff he said works tirelessly and players who have come to expect demanding practices.

“Our kids actually appreciate working hard,” Bird said. “We’ve got the kind of guys that, if you ever have a day where they don’t feel like they worked very hard, they’re kind of looking around like, ‘What’s going on?’”

The task for the coaches is to make sure that effort produces improvement, including during routine repetitions when it can be easy to go through the motions.

“We just have to keep pushing them to get better,” Bird said. “Just keep trying to work hard to get better on a day-by-day basis.”

Greg Ritchie can be reached at [email protected]