LAWTON, Mich. — “Our expectations for this season are to go back to Ford Field and to win a state championship. That’s the whole goal of this,” said Cole Burk.
After a heartbreaking loss in the district final to North Muskegon, Lawton football turns a new leaf in 2024 and wants to make it back to the division seven state final.
“We’re definitely a hungry group. We all want to be here and I think these guys are definitely working towards replacing the guys we lost, building the team up. And I think we’ll definitely have a solid group of guys here,” said Mason Mayne.
In 2023, the Blue Devils only regular season loss was to Constantine in week 3. The week after, their head coach resigned, but the team put their heads down and went on to win seven straight games. They’re now lead by former assistant coach, A.J. High.
“It definitely made out group a more player led group. It changed the dynamic of the team. It kinda turned us into a group that has to lead each other. We have to hold each other accountable for our actions and it definitely shows now,” said Mayne.
“The whole staff is back, 90% of us, so when we had to do that int he middle of the season last year, it was tough but it could’ve been much worse. It went fairly smoothly mostly because us coaches have been together for the better part of five years,” said High.
Lawton has always been known for their strong offense, and while their scheme will stay mostly the same, their defense will very veteran heavy with 7 starters back on that side of the ball, but they’re confident in the type of product they’re going to produce on the field this season.
“Over the past five years we’ve scored a lot of points and had a lot of success on offense, defense also but we had a lot of explosive kids. But last year we had a lot of injuries so we kinda turned into a defensive team at times because some of our best offensive players got hurt. We might not be quite as explosive on offense but I think that we can be almost as good as we have been in the last five years. Maybe even better, we’ll see,” said High.
The Blue Devils will kick off their 2024 campaign on Thursday, August 29th at home against Benton Harbor.
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