He could have talked about how the other team had far more size. He could have taken comfort in knowing that at least his team made it interesting, stayed in the game until its final possession, was a sharp cut here, a dropped pass there, from winning.

Lawrence High senior running back/defensive back Tony Williams did none of that in the wake of the Lions’ 14-7 loss to Olathe South on Friday night at Haskell Stadium.

Instead, Williams peeled through all the layers of ifs and buts and demanded more of himself and his teammates, beginning immediately.

“We play like we practice,” Williams said. “We didn’t have the best week of practice and it showed tonight.”

It showed in the penalty yardage. The Lions (0-2) were flagged seven times for 75 yards.

Williams didn’t want to hear that the Lions played well. He wanted to win and didn’t.

“You could say we played well on defense, but we didn’t play well enough,” he said. “If your offense is going to score one touchdown, you have to get a shutout on defense and we didn’t do that.”

Williams and junior Malcolm Sims, among others, at times used their speed to get good angles on Anthony Sanchez, the Falcons’ fleet running back, to bring him down. For the most part, LHS did a good job of staying on him. Still, Sanchez rushed for 140 yards and it was no consolation that the previous week, against Shawnee Mission South, he ran for 241.

Lawrence High football isn’t about consolation prizes and patronizing compliments. It’s about competing and winning, and on that front, the Lions only did the former the first two weeks. The schedule gets easier in coming weeks, with Leavenworth next up.

To remove the stink of defeat by putting together a winning streak, Williams and mates know the only way to do it is to bring it all the way every day on the practice field.

LHS coach Dirk Wedd tried to take the blame, saying he did a poor job of coaching. He backed his players, who again didn’t show any signs of surrender in the opening two weeks.

“No former Lawrence High players would be embarrassed at the way the kids competed the first two weeks,” Wedd said.

Chance Riley’s 32-yard completion to a leaping Williams gave the Lions one last chance late in the fourth quarter, bringing the ball past midfield, but they never advanced it past the 40.

Riley (11 for 24, 144 yards) and Nathan Padia (nine receptions, 95 yards) again showed some nice chemistry, although Padia’s failure to hang onto a fourth-and-two pass, followed on the very next play by a 62-yard touchdown pass from Mike Keese to Branden Lyons that made it 14-7, were the two biggest plays of the fourth quarter.

“There wasn’t a time all game that I didn’t think we were going to win,” Williams said.

That’s the proper attitude for a player to show. Yet, from the outside, the game didn’t have that feel. The Lions looked a little out of synch, such as when Padia, who scored the only LHS touchdown on a 32-yard reception, broke free on a punt return and had only the punter to beat for a touchdown. Just when he appeared ready to make a sharp cut to his left, Padia rammed right into the punter and was brought down. Almost, but not quite. It was that sort of night.