No. 8 Lake Travis (1-0) brings back over 30 players with varsity experience versus San Marcos’ (1-1) new look team and staff.
The Rattlers have an abundance of players with only a limited experience playing at this level. But head coach John Walsh said that can’t be an excuse when they travel to Lake Travis on Friday night.
“Anytime you get to play a top-10 team that’s senior-heavy, it's always a concern,” Walsh said. “Especially when you know we have a bunch of sophomores playing amongst our seniors and juniors. But that's things we can't worry about, things we can't control. So all we did was take care of ourselves this week and I thought we finished a really good week.”
The good thing is San Marcos has an experienced senior defensive back corps with Kannon Webb and Quddus Ogunbase. The two will have their hands full with 6-foot-5 senior tight end Lake McRee over the middle.
The USC commit is a big play threat, averaging 13.8 yards per catch this season for the Cavaliers. Defensive coordinator Kurtis Kloiber had his guys locked in on him all week in practice.
“Lake McRee, the offense goes through him, he's the fullback, he’s the slot receiver, he's the tight end. So we know that he's going to be key to the game,” Kloiber said. “Where he goes is probably where the ball’s gonna be going. They've got a really good plan. There's a reason why he's going to USC and one of them is because he is so smart and he can do so many things. And so that's the person that we’re gonna key.”
Starting in place of injured senior quarterback and Pittsburgh commit Nate Yarnell for Lake Travis — who’s out with a hand injury — is Bo Edmundson. The sophomore is as accurate as they come, completing 66% percent of his passes.
“We are gonna see Bo Edmundson, he's a good player, he's a Columbia commit, and he stepped right in. He’s just a sophomore so they believe in him and I know that we'll have our hands full with him for sure,” Kloiber explained.
San Marcos will have to be as disciplined as possible if they want a shot at upsetting one of the top teams in the state.
“I want to see more maturity. We’ve done a lot of immature things in a football game to make it hard on ourselves. I think the immaturity cost us the four points in the first game, and the immaturity made the second game harder on us to win,” Walsh said. “So just mature a little more, you know, and we gotta keep growing. This is a long run to get in the playoffs.
“I told them, ‘Our No. 1 goal this year is to get in the tournament and that's it.’ We gotta get better each week and we’ve got a great opportunity against one of the best programs in the state of Texas.”
The Rattlers have a chance to display their maturity this Friday at 7:30 inside Cavalier Stadium in Austin in the District 26-6A opener against 2019’s District 25-6A reigning champions.
