Highlighting the contributions of local area athletes, coaches, and supporters.

Amidst the challenges of expanding to a new conference, this year’s Mattamuskeet Lakers team is facing additional battles.

Head Coach Richard Perry explained the team’s recent difficulties in an interview before a Sept. 6 home game against Creswell.

“We have not had a great start to the year having lost much of my anticipated players to various injuries or other unusual circumstances. I won’t go into detail, suffice to say what should have been one of the more powerful teams in the east has been reduced to a very young and inexperienced teams in the east,” said Perry.

Mattamuskeet’s inexperience showed in their first two games.

The team lost their first game overwhelmingly to 2A school First Flight. They also lost to another much larger school in Dixon.

“We did show some promise by scoring twice and nearly three times late in the game.  Here we have a total of about 130 students in grades nine through twelve,” said Perry.

Over half of the available students in the high school are girls, which leaves about 60 male students to tap for football.

Mattamuskeet has about twenty-five to thirty members on its team. In contrast, First Flight has over eight hundred students in their high school and Dixon has over six hundred.

“Clearly just on numbers we are over-matched. Hopefully when we meet some smaller schools we will fare better. In the meanwhile our students work hard on the field and continue to look forward to a winning season,” said Perry.