By RYAN ARENA

L’Observateur

RESERVE – Last year’s Riverside Rebels showed resiliency after falling in consecutive games to John Curtis and St. Charles, and will have to do so again in 2010 if they are to accomplish what they set out to do in the preseason.

“Getting back on the horse” for the Rebels begins this Friday night at home. Riverside takes a break from district action but will be challenged by Class 4A Lakeshore, which is in its first season of varsity play after playing a junior varsity schedule in 2009.

Lakeshore (2-3) has defeated two District 9-2A teams this season in Lusher (48-14) and Thomas Jefferson (55-0) while falling to another in Newman (42-7). Lakeshore comes off of a close loss to Southern Lab on Friday night, falling by a field goal 27-24.

Riverside coach Mickey Roussel said that while Lakeshore boasts an inexperienced team, it isn’t one without talent.

“They’re vastly improved (from earlier this season),” said Roussel. “They’ve got three or four kids that can really run the ball. It’s a team that relies on speed and spreads you out. And they’re defense is very aggressive. We’ll have to play a solid game on Friday.”

The Rebels’ main focus looks to be eliminating the kinds of mistakes that plagued them in its two losses to Curtis and St. Charles. Against the Comets, Riverside (5-2, 2-2) fell behind 14-0 but swung momentum back in their favor before halftime, scoring twice in the final four minutes of the first half on runs by Thomas Crouch and Darnell Rachal.

But the third quarter brought on a series of Rebel mistakes that permanently swung things back in the favor of the Comets. Riverside’s first two drives of the half ended in SCC territory thanks to fumbles, and a pair of missed opportunities on third down — SCC converted a third-and-six on a jump ball to Jeffrey Hall that went for a touchdown, then Marcus Hall converted a third-and-35 out of the Wildcat formation on a drive that led to a Comet touchdown — put Riverside in another hole.

“You have a good drive going, but you can’t put the ball on the ground,” said Roussel. “We had three turnovers, and at every level, high school, college, pro, it doesn’t matter … you hear about winning the turnover battle being so important, and its true.

“Defensively, we played well for the most part. We missed opportunities on about three or four plays though. We blew some assignments.

“There’s a lot of football left, and we can still be a great team. But there are things to clean up.”