On Blake Douzat’s right arm, just below the elbow, a tattoo of the No. 12 sits in between a pair of angel’s wings.

As a striker for the West Lauderdale High School boys soccer team, Douzat’s job is to score goals for the Knights. Prior to Dec. 4, if he found the back of the net, he’d usually look up to the stands to see a familiar face cheering him on. 

Douzat’s best friend was 15-year-old Bradley House, who died tragically Dec. 4 when he and his father, Jason House, were hit by a car in Kemper County while they were changing following a hunting trip. In the days following House’s death, Douzat chose to permanently etch his friend’s football number — 12 — on his arm as a reminder that House would always be watching.

“I don’t just look down at it as any other tattoo,” said Douzat, a junior. “I think of it as a memory every time I look at it. We always said we’d get a tattoo together, so every time I see it, it brings back good memories and makes me happy.”

The Knights (15-3-1) are coming off a 3-1 victory against Sumrall High School in round one of the MHSAA Class 4A postseason and are set to face St. Stanislaus High School (15-5-1) at home Saturday. What the team hopes is a strong playoff run almost didn’t happen, as West Lauderdale dropped two divisional games to Northeast Lauderdale and Northeast Jones high schools the week of the tragedy. A 5-1 finish in Region 5-4A, however, gave the Knights a postseason berth, and head coach Bryan Miley said the team was able to rally at the right time despite emotions being heavy.

“It affected the whole school, the whole community,” Miley recalled the week House died. “This school was like a ghost town. You had kids trying to go to the wake, kids that were on the phone with him when it happened. One of their best friends was taken from them, and they’re 15-, 16-, 18-year-old kids — they don’t know how to deal with something like that. 

“We kind of lost our mojo for a week, and that really put us behind the 8-ball. We knew we had to go on a streak to win.”

Senior forward Trey McClinton, who leads the team with 20 goals on the season, said the team fought through the tragedy and treated it as a rallying cry of sorts to finish the season strong.

“It was just really devastating,” McClinton said. “Everyone was upset, sad and mad about everything. We just wanted to play for him. People on our team were family to him, and we treat them all as family.”

Though they were separated by one grade — House was a sophomore — and weren’t blood-related, Douzat said he and House were practically siblings.

“He was a young guy, but he didn’t care who you were, he just wanted to have fun,” Douzat said. “He always had a smile on his face. More than any of my friends, he was like a brother to me.”

Honoring House’s memory included spraying the No. 12 at the midfield line last month. It was around that time West Lauderdale’s 5-1 run in division began, and Douzat said honoring House’s memory was a big deal for a team that needed an emotional push.

“To me, I dedicate all my games to him still, but as a team we kind of knew we needed to pull together and work hard, because we figured out that when we work hard together, we succeed,” Douzat said.

McClinton echoed Douzat, saying there was a now-or-never attitude with the team once the players realized a postseason berth was on the line.

“We figured out we really had to work hard to get where we wanted to be,” McClinton said. “At first, we were on streaks and got upset when we lost our first game, but when we came back together, the team was on a whole other level.”

Miley said the Knights’ finish to the 2015-16 season, in which West Lauderdale went 4-3 in Region 5-4A and missed the playoffs, was also fresh on his players’ minds — and they didn’t want this season to have the same ending.

“Our motto this year has been, ‘Leave no doubt,’” Miley said. “Last year, we felt like we left some doubts on the field that (kept) us from making the playoffs, so we try to give every ounce of everything we’ve got while we’re out there. We feel like if we give more than you do, we can play with you.”

McClinton, who boasts offers from East Central, East Mississippi and Meridian community colleges, among other Mississippi junior colleges, said he and his teammates don’t want Saturday to be their last high school game together.

“We want to win the state championship, and we’re going to do everything we can to (win state),” McClinton said.

When Douzat takes the field Saturday, he might still look to the stands for House out of habit. Though he said things have gotten easier as time goes on, Douzat still misses the sight of his friend going crazy whenever he scores a goal.

“When I’d look up at the stands after I scored, he’d be jumping no matter who was looking at him,” Douzat said. “He liked to cheer for me. It’s kind of hard looking up there and not seeing my best bud cheering for me, but it’s just one of those things that gets better after time — it’s just rough at the time.”