By Joe Zigtema
Sports Editor

Every Big Spring Steer felt the sting of his first loss Friday in Abilene.
But as head coach Phillip Ritchey said, the Steers understand they face two key games down the home stretch of their regular season, the first of which comes against San Angelo Lake View.

“We’ve been in this situation a couple times this year coming off of big games,” Ritchey said. “After watching (Monday’s) practice that kind of put my mind at ease because our kids were really focused. This game is really more important than last week’s game as far as the small school division playoffs go because we’ve got Hereford and Lake View and they’re both along with us small schools.

    “We’re playing to get in the playoffs this week and I don’t think we’ll have any trouble getting ready for it.”

Big Spring holds a 16-7 all-time advantage over the Chiefs, including a 42-32 win last year that propelled the Steers through the regular season and into the playoffs. Lake View (2-6, 1-2) lost 32 seniors from that team, returning 15 lettermen.

The Chiefs are coming off a 49-14 loss to Hereford at home and are needing a win to wrap up a playoff spot.

“Lake View’s still got hope for a shot of getting in the playoffs,” Ritchey said. “They’ve got a lot to play for so we have to be ready for them.”

Runningback Montae Anderson will look to get back on track Friday night after finishing just shy of the century mark for the first time of the season last week, going for 97 yards on 31 carries.

“In every game that we’ve played, [Anderson has] been the main focus of the defense, but this is the first time that he’s been limited like he was,” Ritchey said.

Lake View will try to duplicate how the Cougars were able to stymie Big Spring’s run game with a similar scheme, Ritchey said. The Chiefs’ coaching staff is made up of former Cooper coaches.

“We’ll probably see a lot of the same things, which is good for us because we’ve worked on it a week,” Ritchey said. “Now we’re just kind of continuing what we started last week and making some adjustments here and there.”

Defensively, Big Spring will try to slow down Lake View quarterback Paxton Martin, who has thrown for more than 1,600 yards this season and 17 touchdowns.

“[Lake View has] had a lot of trouble running the football against everybody that they’ve played, so they’ve been forced to throw the ball a bunch,” Ritchey said. “[Martin] has got a lot of yards and he’s got a couple of good receivers, so I expect them to throw the ball a bunch against us because we’re pretty good against the run.”

The Steers had trouble defending Cooper’s passing attack last week, giving up most of the Cougars’ 243 first-half yards through the air.

They were, however, able to intercept Cooper quarterback Ryan Heslep for his first of the season and limit the Cougar offense in the second half by pressuring the quarterback. Ritchey is ready to come after Martin, who was held to just 87 yards through the air last week in a 49-14 loss to Hereford.

“The key is just pressuring this guy, and it’s going to be a big key friday,

 Ritchey said. “We’re going to try to mix it up and keep him guessing as to what we’re going to do whether we’re in man or zone, with a lot of blitzing, or whether we show man and drop to a zone and rush with four. Our kids understand we’ve got to get to that quarterback.”

Ritchey is looking for a big crowd Friday night to cheer on the Steers.

“We want to try to encourage everybody to come out and stay behind this team,” he said. “We’re not in the top ten anymore, but that doesn’t take anything away from our team. We’ve got a good football team, these kids are working hard and we’re going to need a lot of support to keep them pumped up.”