photo by: Journal-World file photo

The Lawrence Lions take on the Olathe West Owls on Thursday, Sept. 8, 2022 at CBAC.

One week removed from a 28-21 win over Olathe West, the Lawrence High football team will travel to Shawnee Mission East on Friday in hopes of grabbing its second win of the season.

The Lions (1-1) will take on a Lancers program that is fresh off of back-to-back road losses Gardner-Edgerton (63-32) and Olathe East (33-14). LHS coach Clint Bowen said Week 3 is when his group needs to start shifting gears.

“We’re getting into the part of the season where our guys have to start learning how to prepare every single week,” Bowen said. “It’s how to take the scouting report, put that into play, get an understanding from that and then go back to practice and understand how you’re playing.”

Despite making improvements late to save the win a week ago, the LHS defense is still struggling with Bowen’s concept of “eye-control football.”

“The game of football, on defense, is about getting your eyes on the key that we’ve instructed you to read and seeing that and reacting,” he said. “It’s a read-and-react game on defense. Right now, we’re letting our eyes go away from our key and it’s slowing our reactions down.”

SM East is a pass-heavy team, choosing to throw the ball nearly 70% of the time, according to Bowen. Last week, the LHS defense allowed 171 yards through the air.

“They’ve adopted the philosophy of trying to air the ball out with four wide and three wide (sets),” Bowen said. “They do have some nice route concepts. For us, I think the game is going to come down to our defensive backs keeping their eyes on their targets in coverage.”

Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. at Shawnee Mission North District Stadium.