Disappointing but educational
The MacArthur Highlanders' first loss of the season last Friday night against Lawton High may have ended their chances for winning a city championship, but what it did do was allow the coaching staff to better understand just what they had going forward.
"It's still a young season and our goals are still in reach," Mac head coach Brett Manning said. "Winning a city championship, as nice at it is, isn't one of our goals. Our main goal is winning a state championship and you do that by winning your district, which is our second goal. Both of those are still what we have left. Of course, we would love to win every game, but it doesn't always work out that way. We have to go into the game this week with the attitude that we have one more week to get better before it really counts."
The biggest lessons learned by the players and coaches is that getting out in front early is a key part of sustained success.
"The first half just reinforced the fact that we are young and inexperienced," Manning said. "We just made a whole lot of mistakes. Everything from not getting lined up right as well as not getting the signals right on defense to just not executing offensively. The second half was a different story. We challenged them at halftime and told them they could get better or they could get worse. They chose to get better and fought through it."

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