South Lakes Heads To Chantilly For Start Of Concorde District Play

RESTON, VA — To the good people of Reston and Herndon, last Saturday’s 26-14 victory for Herndon High over South Lakes was the Hornets’ first victory in a decade in the Baron Cameron Cup rivalry game.

But for the teams themselves it was a final non-district tune-up before league play begins in earnest this week. At 2-3, the Seahawks open defense of their Concorde District championship this Friday at 7 at Chantilly. They dominated in the two victories over National District opponents and had bad breaks snowball into brief-but-decisive periods of misfortune in all three losses.

Two touchdowns in two minutes turned a one-point South Lakes lead into a two-touchdown deficit in what became a 38-21 season-opening loss at Osborne. A failed fake punt and a fumbled kickoff gave Robinson two touchdowns to break out of a 6-6 tie and go on to win 27-6. An unplanned onside kick gave Herndon the clinching touchdown in Saturday’s game.

The Seahawks take some positives into the back half of the schedule. Their defense recorded eight more tackles-for-losses against Herndon and now have 38 on the season. Until this week, when Herndon kept the Seahawks backed up with kickoffs out of the end zone, the defense provided good field position in every game.

But the best thing to come out of the Herndon game was the South Lakes passing attack. Senior quarterback Mohamed Shuaib had his best game of the season, completing 17 of 25 passes for 202 yards and a touchdown. He had streaks of seven and five completions in a row and dropped a beautiful – almost too beautiful – pass into the hands of Cody Wood on a wheel route for an 86-yard touchdown.

“That was Mo’s best week grade- and performance-wise,” said South Lakes Coach Jason Hescock. “He’s managing the game much better. He’s learning to take what they give him. He’s carrying out his fakes better. He’s hitting those quick screens down the line. He’s making much better pre-snap reads.”

Shuaib said it’s a matter of becoming more comfortable. “It’s working together, me getting my progressions down and my arm getting stronger and faster,” he said. “But we also need to be more disciplined.”

It’s a good time for Shuaib to hit his stride, Hescock said. The Chargers, 3-2, come in off two lopsided losses – a 43-13 setback at Madison last week and a 70-0 loss to Hayfield the week before.

But Madison and Hayfield are both undefeated and appear to be on a collision course for a meeting late in the playoffs, and the Chargers had opened the season with solid victories over Falls Church (42-0), Woodson (41-18) and McLean (28-13).

On defense, Chantilly features an aggressive blitzing attack with experienced linebackers and good athletes along the defensive line, Hescock said. On offense, they rely on a good running back and a diverse attack. “They spread the ball around, and they do a lot of stuff with motion and so forth that puts you in conflict,” Hescock said.

The coach said his team has to continue to improve and execute better to prevail on Friday because the Chargers will not mail it in. South Lakes spoiled Chantilly’s homecoming two years ago at Chantilly on the way to a 4-6 season. Last year, South Lakes celebrated its homecoming with a 49-14 victory in Reston.

“We’ve beaten them three in a row, and we beat them my first year in four overtimes,” Hescock said.”This team doesn’t like us at all. There will be lots of bad blood. It’ll be chippy and physical, and they’ll play hard to the whistle and beyond. We better have our minds right because Chantilly is going to be fired up.”