photo by: Val Montanez/Special to the Journal-World

Lawrence High School football players during pregame before the matchup with Shawnee Mission South on Friday, Sept. 6, 2024, in Lawrence.

The Lawrence High School football team will face its first road challenge of the season on Thursday as the Lions travel to Junction City to face the Blue Jays at 7 p.m.

If there’s one thing that LHS coach Clint Bowen can predict about the team’s upcoming opponent, it’s that they will be prepared. Randall Zimmerman has led the program for decades, and for good reason. Zimmerman has been the coach since 1994 and has won 191 games with a 6A state championship in 2008.

“His teams are well coached,” Bowen said. “They know what they’re doing and they’re schematically and fundamentally sound, so you have to beat them that way.”

That being said, Bowen believes that his Lions are also a tough team to play.

The Blue Jays are coming off a 6-4 season in which they advanced to the second round of the playoffs, where they lost to Washburn Rural 27-20.

The last time that these two teams saw each other was in 2021, which was Bowen’s first year coaching the Lions. The two teams met in the playoffs and the Lions won 38-21.

The Blue Jays are a tough team to stop on offense. Bowen said that the Blue Jays run a multitude of systems, such as variants of the old school wing-T offense or playing an air-raid style with 10 personnel (one running back, no tight ends and four receivers). That makes them difficult to stop, as they can beat a team in a plethora of ways.

“(Zimmerman) has this blend of modern and old, and that makes it tough,” Bowen said. “It’s two completely different philosophies of offense that he will throw at you on back-to-back plays.”

For the Lions, they’ll stick to what they do best defensively and match their calls to what the Blue Jays have on the field. A big advantage that the Lions have is their pass rush, which will cause any offense trouble. Having more negative-yardage plays on defense will be a key to slowing down the Blue Jays offense.

“We’re going to be a tough team to handle as long as Josh (Galbreath) is coming off the edge,” Bowen said. “You have to pay attention to him.”

It isn’t just Galbreath who is a challenge to block. Devin Foster is another player that Bowen called an explosive athlete that can disrupt plays, along with interior defensive lineman Larney Finney. That trio together is difficult to block, which is the crux of the Lions defensive success.

That was one of the strengths of the Lions in their season-opening win last Friday. The Lions consistently put Shawnee Mission South’s offense behind the sticks.

One such moment that stuck out to Bowen was when the Raiders on a third-and-18 converted a first down on a screen pass. The Raiders then picked up another first down, which could have been a big momentum shift early in the game. But the defense tightened up and got off the field in the next set of downs, which preserved the team’s shutout.

Bowen said after the team’s first game that he wanted to establish the run game offensively more over the next few games. That’s an area where the Lions can find success this week, given the size advantage in favor of the Lawrence offensive line over the Junction City defensive line.

“They’re going to line up a few smaller defensive ends, and we’ve got good size, so I think we will be able to get some movement along the line of scrimmage,” Bowen said. “Then we will do what we do: If we start getting some movement at the line of scrimmage and they start pulling those safeties into the box, then we will go to our vertical passing game.”

Bowen was pleased with how his quarterback Banks Bowen operated the offense last week. When the defense brought the safeties closer to the line of scrimmage, he made them pay with deep completions to his receivers. Taking advantage of those leverages and mismatches is what the Lions offense is all about, and they’ll continue to work that through the season.

Another takeaway from the win after reviewing the tape was the issue of tackling for the Lions. It is expected, given that it was the first week of the season, but it wasn’t good enough for Bowen. The team has practiced that a lot over the week in preparation for Thursday.

The team will take the over 90-mile trip to Junction City on Thursday around 3 p.m., with the bus ride giving the team a chance to lock in mentally before the game. It’s a sneaky advantage when playing on the road that Bowen is expecting to help his team perform and get the road win.

photo by: Val Montanez/Special to the Journal-World

Lawrence High School football players during pregame before the matchup with Shawnee Mission South on Friday, Sept. 6, 2024, in Lawrence.