Lima Senior’s Zaveon Garner gets away from a group of Toledo Scott defenders during Friday night’s game at Spartan Stadium.
Jessica Trinko | The Lima News
LIMA — There might have been a little skepticism about Lima Senior having a league championship football team going into this season.
After all, the Spartans hadn’t had a winning season since 2016, and they never won a championship in their 12 seasons in the Three Rivers Athletic Conference and last won a league title as a member of the Greater Miami Conference during their 1996 Division I state championship season.
“All four of our years, we’ve been trying to fight for some wins and a winning season. We’ve finally got it,” said Chance Sanders, a senior wide receiver for the Spartans. “We’ve just been working. That’s what we’ve been doing. It’s finally coming.”
Now in their first year in the Toledo City League, the Spartans (7-2, 5-0 TCL) have the opportunity they believed they’d get. It will be a battle of the Spartans, as Lima Senior plays host to Toledo Start (5-4, 5-0 TCL) at 7 p.m. Friday at Spartan Stadium, with the league title on the line.
It’s been quite a turnaround for Lima Senior, which went 3-8 last year before the school hired coach Bill Lawrence in the offseason.
“When I took the job in late April, our goal was a championship, right from the beginning,” Lawrence said. “We’re excited that we get an opportunity to do that.”
The team knows it’s building something special as it’s won six in a row. Lima Senior has a high-powered air attack that generated 479 yards and nine touchdowns from sophomore quarterback Ja’niaus Hall in last week’s 62-26 win against the defending TCL champion, Scott. Seven receivers had a catch in the game, with Zaveon Garner nabbing an impressive eight catches for 173 yards and four touchdowns.
“It’s definitely been a while,” said Garner, a 6-foot-3 senior receiver. “Our goal is to get to the championship, keep going and keep the process going for next year.”
It took everyone to get to this point, Lawrence said. He credited defensive coordinator Tristan Reichelderfer and the assistants for devising a solid plan to shut down Scott, which had been tied with Lima Senior 20-20 in the second quarter last week before giving up just 74 yards in the second half on the way to the rout.
It’s hard not to acknowledge the Spartans’ aggressive offense, which throws deep often and only had nine rushing attempts by players who weren’t playing quarterback.
“When we put up yards and do all the things we do in our offense, it starts with our O-line,” Lawrence said. “Our O-line does a great job. They gave Ja’niaus time, and they take care of our sophomore, who just gets better and better and better.”
Now they’re just one win away from winning their first TCL title and setting themselves up for a possible home game in the playoffs. They’re currently No. 8 in the Division II, Region 8 standings and clinched a playoff spot, according to the unofficial rankings on JoeEitel.com.
“We’re going to turn the city up and prove everybody wrong, all the doubters,” Sanders said. “There’s probably still people thinking we’re not going to do it, to win a championship. We’re going to do it, though.”
There’s plenty of room on the Spartans’ bandwagon Friday night, Lawrence said. They’ll face a Start team on a four-game winning streak that averaged nearly 40 points a game during that stretch while only giving up 17.
“We hope that all of Lima will show up to be a part of it,” Lawrence said. “… We’re excited, and we want to turn out big this next game.”
