Its all bombs away over in Waterford these days as longtime Waterford Our Lady of The Lakes head football coach, Mike Boyd, has his team playing some championship-level pigskin once again. The Lakers are 6-0 and poised to be one of the favorites heading into the Division 8 state playoffs later this month. WOLL's 28-20 win over Royal Oak Shrine on Sunday clinched the program another Catholic League regular season crown and guaranteed itself a place in the postseason for the 13th consecutive year. Shrine took home the CHSL Intersectional-2 regular season title last year.

 

The win over Shrine, now 4-2 and most likely a playoff team too, ruined the Knights Homecoming. The primary party crasher for the Lakers was fullback Anthony "The Coz Man" Caiozzo, who punished Shrine defenders for a game-high 134 yards on the ground and three TD's. The Coz Man's performance also served as a bit of payback from the Lakers to their rival Knights. Last year, Shrine's star tailback Anthony Cade ran wild on the WOLL 'D', rushing for over 350 yards and four TD's. It looks like the Coz Man wanted to give the Shriners a little taste of their own medicine.

 

After Shrine's Raymond Brown scored early on via a 6-yard run to make the score 7-0, the Lakers reeled off 28 unanswered points to take what appeared to be a comfortable three touchdown advantage. But the Knights came roaring back and closed to within one score at 28-20 with under two and half minutes to play when junior quarterback Branch Kampe found Bertram Marks for a 65-yard touchdown pass. However, Boyd's boys did the job on defense in the game's closing moments and escaped the unfriendly waters of Royal Oak with a "W". WOLL's defense held Shrine on four straight downs in the final seconds of the game to secure the victory. Coz Man and the Lakers rushing attack was doing so much damage against the Knights, Boyd didn't even need to call on the pistol-like arm of junior signal caller, Mike Sullivan, to take to the air to pull this one out. That's a great sign! 

 

Boyd has won his share of state championships at Lakes - both on the gridiron and on the softball diamond- ,and with the way his troops are playing right now, there very well could be another one just around the corner.