If you are part of the West Lauderdale faithful, you can take two approaches to Thursday night’s rivalry game against Northeast Lauderdale. 

For the optimist, you can be pleased with the fact the Knights cleaned up their first-half mistakes after halftime and closed out the regular season with a resounding win. 

However, if you’re more of the glass-is-half-empty variety, West Lauderdale’s 11 first-half penalties might leave you a bit anxious entering next week’s playoff.

West Lauderdale, in a game moved up a day early due to weather concerns for Friday, defeated Northeast Lauderdale 42-7 Thursday night at West Lauderdale High School. After beginning the season on a three-game slide, West Lauderdale has won seven of its last eight games in coach Brock Clay’s inaugural season as top man.

“We just stayed the course, and did what we were going to do,” Clay said. “(There was) a new system, new plays, new offense for us going into those first couple of games — it just took time for us to gel, and me as a coach. The biggest thing is we just stayed the course on changing it around.”

The Knights will know more about their playoff seeding following tomorrow’s Quitman-Mendenhall game, as the three teams have one region blemish each. But the likely scenario has West Lauderdale (7-4, 4-1) securing the No. 2 seed and home-field advantage.

For Northeast Lauderdale (6-5, 2-3), which has dropped three of its last four, the playoffs await after a five-year absence from the postseason. The Trojans will enter the postseason as the No. 4 seed, and travel to Poplarville next Friday. 

“At the end of the night, we’re going to be 0-0,” Northeast Lauderdale coach Curt Blackburn said of entering the playoffs. “We got into a new season, and that’s something that was one of our goals at the beginning, so we want to keep that success going with that, and just try to move forward.” 

The Trojans muddled through the first half Thursday, as they accumulated seven penalties and lost two fumbles in the first 24 minutes. Quarterback Kamerion Hulin accounted for the Trojans’ lone touchdown when he ran for a 5-yard score in the second quarter.

“I went for the big plays there, and tried an onside kick and gave them good field position — just things like that, and nothing ever added up. We couldn’t get anything going,” Blackburn said. “It just wasn’t our night.”

The Knights were able to overcome their penalty-laden first half with the help of strong ground game responsible for three opening-half scores.

Kamron Rackley lined up in the backfield early in the first quarter and scored from 1 yard out to give the Knights a 7-0 lead after the successful PAT, and Taylor Turnage and Kurt Rackley rushed for touchdowns of 15 yards and 3 yards, respectively in the first half to give West Lauderdale a 21-7 lead at intermission.

In the third quarter, Damion Mack ripped off a 3-yard touchdown run, and quarterback Turbo McKee hit Tylo Phillips on a 20-yard strike.

Turnage tallied his second rushing touchdown and rounded out the game’s scoring via a 16-yard run in the fourth quarter.