Lufkin Daily News sports editor Josh Havard held a question-and-answer session with Lufkin head coach John Outlaw on Wedensday afternoon. The Panthers dropped a 31-21 decision to The Woodlands Highlanders on Friday night. Lufkin will travel to Woodforest Bank Stadium in The Woodlands to take on the Oak Ridge War Eagles Friday. The winner of that game will earn District 14-5A's top seed in the Division II bracket.
Q Does the team have any injuries of note coming out of Friday's game against The Woodlands?
A Yeah, we have 45 broken hearts in there. Other than that, it was a game of missed opportunities. I don't want to take away anything from a perfect game by The Woodlands. But we had four dropped balls and any one of those could have completely changed the game. We had breakdowns in our coverage that let them get some big plays. There were some questionable calls out there. There were just a lot of things that didn't go right for us. We're going to have to get over that hangover, move on and get ready for the rest of the season. Nobody at any level wins their conference or district every single year. We can't change what happened Friday night, but we can play better the rest of the year.
Q How important will it be for the team to put that loss behind them and get ready for a game against Oak Ridge that will decide the seedings in the Region II playoffs?
A There's no question we're going to have to put it behind us. It's different for these kids to lose at Abe Martin Stadium. It's especially tough for this senior group because I think we've lost four games there in the last 10 years, and their last memory of playing there is probably going to be a loss. But there's still another big game in front of us this week. That was a big one against The Woodlands, but this one is for seedings. It can make the difference in the opponent you play in the first week of the playoffs, although they're all good teams.
Q What is the playoff scenario for District 13-5A, which matches up with the 14-5A teams in the first round of the playoffs?
A Well, it's really wide open. They've got four teams that are 3-3 and they've got all sorts of different point differential tiebreakers. We can't be too worried about who we're playing in the playoffs. Our focus needs to be on what we need to get better and get that bad taste out of our mouths.
Q What did The Woodlands' offense do to keep the defense off balance in scoring 28 points in the first half Friday night.
A We're scoring now, which we weren't doing earlier, but we're not playing as good defensively as we were earlier. Facts are facts and we've given up 80 points in the last three weeks. We've given up seven touchdown passes. I don't know if it's a lack of concentration on the kids' part or if its something else. We stopped a good running back on Friday night, but we're just not finishing on defense. We'll get in good situations and let them get out of trouble. We've been finishing well on offense lately other than in the second half Friday. We dropped balls that we didn't drop against College Park. The toughest one was with the one Arthur (Tinz) had because he feels awful about it. That one hurt him because it means so much to him. But I have no doubt he's going to make a play to win a game for us this season.
