SportsZone Football Friday Game of the Week Preview: Camdenton at Battle

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

The CMAC takes center stage with an intra-conference showdown for week five.

The Lakers and Spartans are our SportsZone Football Friday Game of the Week. You can watch the game live over the air channel 17.3 on KZOU. Here is a look at other local listings:

• DirecTV - Channel 18
• Dish Network - Channel 32
• Mediacom - Channel 12 & 709
• Centurylink - Channel 12
• Spectrum - Channel 183

The game will also stream live in the player below.

Camdenton got off to a flying start, already matching their season win total from a year ago. The Lakers picked up huge wins scoring more than 45 points in each of their first three games. That streak came to a halt when they faced Helias, but now head coach Cole Walker is looking to get his side back on track.

"I thought we played pretty good through the first three weeks," Walker said. "We got Helias and kind of ran into a buzzsaw, though we felt pretty good about it."

That point scoring stretch can largely be attributed to the new coaching staff that was brought in along with Walker. Camdenton's new offensive coordinator, Shaun Hill, played quarterback in the NFL for more than a decade, and has brought new life to that offense.

"We're doing different things on offense than we've ever done at Camdenton," Walker said. "I've been pleasantly surprised with how well our kids have learned it and taken off with it."

The newness on offense still holds some ties to the history the Lakers have on the Gridiron. Walker played football while at Camdenton, and wants to keep much of that tradition the same while restoring this group to a state title level team.

"We still feel like running the football in high school wins championships, and that's where we want to be. Traditionally, we call our defense the 'Purple Haze' defense, and we wanted to get back to playing our brand of attacking style defense," Walker said.

While that team is restoring its identity, so is the team they're set to face in week five. Battle is in year two under head coach Shawn Gaines. The Spartans had a bounce back game against Hickman despite falling in that game.

Battle managed to break into the end zone for the first time in two weeks, and force a high caliber offense into multiple difficult situations.

"Defensively, we were able to get some stops, we were able to bend but not break for a few drives there," Gaines said. "Offensively we were able to overcome some adversity, a lot of penalties, a lot of bad plays that shouldn't have been bad plays. But as. an entire team, I was proud of our fight."

The Spartans are still in search of their first win of the year, but are right on the edge of putting those pieces together. Coach Gaines often reminds his team that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and that it's closer than many of them think.

"We're not down and out, we still have a lot more football that we can play. We've got five more weeks and then on top of that we've got a playoff game. We can get to work and get our heads to where we know we can be."

Even from week zero at the preseason jamborees, coach Gaines has liked what he's seen from his squad, and thinks they can match up well against some of the best teams in the area. He's hoping to harness that belief and help his team string together enough good drives to turn that into the regular.

"We went to the Hillsborough Jamboree, and Hillsborough is 4-0. Northwest is another class six school that was there, they're 3-1. Both of those schools we match up pretty well with and we didn't look like we were just some terrible team. We were in it and it was a competitive matchup. We had the talent, we had the ability to be there. We just have to put it all together for more than a drive for more than a quarter. We have to put it together for four,"

Battle will host Camdenton on their own turf on Friday, Sept. 25 at 7:00 p.m.