Physicality Deficit Limited South Lakes’s Season

It had been a week since the South Lakes High football team closed its season with a 49-14 loss at Westfield, and Seahawks Coach Jason Hescock said he still hadn’t been able to “get off the couch” after his team’s 2-8 finish.

But he had a pretty good idea of what happened to the team and what must be done to fix it. And most of the critical work will take place before the Seahawks play another game.

“It was the physicality,” Hescock said. “We were almost never the more physical team at the point of attack. Third downs, fourth downs and in the red zone … we just couldn’t get the stops we needed. And when you’re not the most physical team, it leads to a lot of other mistakes, and those hurt us too. I think everyone saw this year that we have to be better off the field, in the offseason, in the weight room, in practice … all the steps that go into building a good team.””

The physicality deficit meant not only that the Seahawks struggled to convert on third and fourth downs, it meant more penalties.South Lakes averaged seven penalties worth more than 70 yards per game, and six scoring plays were rubbed out by flags. Its opponents averaged fewer than five penalties.

It meant they were vulnerable to big, physical running backs, such as Robinson’s Torrance Thompson (21 carries-78 yards) Herndon’s Brayden Humphreys (20-161, 2 TDs) and, most memorably Chantilly’s Teddy Boucher, who gained 160 yards on 26 carries, including a physical 1-yard TD run on the game’s final play as Chantilly defeated South Lakes, 30-28.

The numbers on third and fourth downs and on red zone trips do not look all that bad. The Seahawks converted 35 of 110 first downs and allowed opponents to convert 37 of 115. On fourth downs, South Lakes made 7 of 12; its opponents made 16 of 26. In the red zone, South Lakes was 22 of 30 and its opponents 26 of 33.

Those numbers are skewed somewhat by South Lakes’s propensity to score on big plays. They scored on a school-record 98-yard pass play from Mohamed Shuaib to Nicholas Picarelli. They scored on runs of 57 and 49 in that game, got an 83-yard touchdown pass to Cody Wood against Herndon, an 86-yard Wood run against Westfield and a 51-yard run against Mount Vernon.

But the numbers were misleading in other ways as well. Against Westfield, for instance, South Lakes was perfect in the red zone (2-of-2), perfect on fourth down conversions (1-of-1) and 7-of-15 on third downs. But the Seahawks missed their first six third-down attempts, and by the time they did convert one, it was 28-0 Westfield.

Chantilly converted only 3 of 15 third downs against South Lakes, but the Chargers converted five of seven fourth downs, including a pass play for 10 yards on 4th-and-4 at the South Lakes 14 that led to the winning touchdown as time expired two plays later. Similarly, South Lakes held Herndon to 3-of-11 on third downs, but the Hornets converted two fourth down plays, which led to two touchdowns in a 26-14 victory.

But as Hescock pointed out, there’s more to physicality than winning a battle at the line of scrimmage. “Teams that are physical are confident, and teams that are confident are successful,” Hescock said. “They can overcome adversity. They expect to succeed.”

That became harder for the Seahawks as the season wore on. The heartbreak at Chantilly was followed by an even tougher loss at Oakton, when the Seahawks scored late to force overtime, then matched an overtime touchdown by the Cougars with one of their own only to have Nicholas Bertoni’s partially blocked extra-point kick hit the left upright and fall short.

“I went home and laid in bed and thought about it a long time,” said Bertoni of his only missed extra point kick of the year in 27 attempts. “It was batted. They were coming over the top of us, which they aren’t supposed to do. But that’s what happened.”

The Seahawks had lost their first two games in shocking fashion to Osborne and Robinson, then bounced back with two stellar performances – a 48-6 thrashing of Falls Church and a 40-16 romp at Mount Vernon.

The Seahawks rushed for 333 yards on what was the offensive line’s best game of the season.

Cody Wood, who made second-team All-Concorde District “and would’ve been first team if we’d done better as a team,” Hescock said – scored two of his team-high 17 touchdowns and gained 161 of his team-high 711 yards against Mount Vernon. Called the Muscle Hamster for his dedication in the weight room after Hescock told him to get bigger and stronger, Wood also finished as the third-leading receiver with nine catches for 183 yards, and second on the team in TD passes with two.

Picarelli (12-134, 2 TDs rushing on the season), Dalton Blakeney (23-135, 3 TDs) and Mohamed Shuaib all scored on running plays, and the Seahawks overcame some early mistakes and dominated throughout.

But after the two heartbreakers, the Seahawks found it harder to battle. They lost 35-7 to Madison in a game in which South Lakes scored first and trailed 14-7 at half. They lost 31-21 to Centreville on Senior Day thanks to a 28-point third quarter by the Wildcats, then finished with the loss at Westfield..

Centreville was one of three occasions when close games got away from the Seahawks in tiny periods of time. Against Osborne in Week 1, South Lakes led 14-13 but allowed two touchdowns in 2:16 and never got back into the game.Against Robinson, it was 6-6 midway through the third quarter when the Rams got two touchdowns in 1:08 thanks to a fumbled kickoff to take a commanding lead.

Shuaib’s huge arm produced some huge plays – he finished 101 of 203 for 1,307 yards and 11 touchdowns. His best throw was probably the 86-yard touchdown to Wood in the Herndon game, when he hit the speedy senior in perfect stride down the right sideline on a wheel play.

Alec Saunders, South Lakes’s most versatile player – he saw time at running back, wide receiver and quarterback – led South Lakes receivers with 30 catches for 355 yards and three touchdowns. Picarelli, a sophomore, added 18 catches for 268 yards and one touchdown and Matthew McArthur had 16 catches for 249 yards and two touchdowns as South Lakes outgained its opponents through the air on the season by nearly 15 yards per game..

So a season in which tough guys along the line such as Nathan Deglel, Amaure Thaxton and Xvavier Swain hung as long as they could has ended. And a new one, says Hescock, already has begun.

“We have to get older for one thing, but also stronger and bigger and tougher and more physical,” Hescock said “Those guys on the defensive line kept us in a lot of games. They’re who we are as a program and who I am as a coach. But it has to be all of us. We have to be more physical. There’s no other way.”