Laurence Manning's Miller makes impact on both sides of the ball on way to Hines Furniture Athlete of the Week

The Laurence Manning football team has experienced a very tumultuous start to its season. Head coach David Rankin has been battling health concerns, watching their opening game against East Clarendon last week in the hospital. Meanwhile, the weather has not been friendly to the Swampcats. Heat has made it difficult to practice outside, and storms forced them to lose a matchup with Williamsburg Academy to start the season. As a result, they played their season opener against EC on Thursday, Aug. 27, because they couldn't risk potentially missing a second game.

With all of that swirling around the program, LMA put plenty of weight on the shoulders of their newest teammate, Blandyn Miller, who transferred from Atlantic Collegiate this fall.

The offensive and defensive lineman put on a show in his Swampcat debut, making splash plays on defense while helping open up scoring

opportunities for the LMA offense. His performance, which included four tackles in the backfield and a turnover, earned him recognition as the Hines Furniture Athlete of the Week after helping power the 24-6 victory over EC.

"It means a lot," Miller said of the support he's received from the Laurence Manning community. "I'm new here, and they still went out and voted for me, so that means a lot. It shows the whole community is really behind me and this team."

Brock Miller, who is filling in for Rankin as interim head coach, is proud of his son for stepping up under lofty expectations as he steps into a new football environment.

"He has a lot of pressure on him. We moved from a 2A high school where he had a successful year. No one here knows him, they'd just heard about him and how well he played last year, so I think he harbored that some, worrying about not performing," Coach Miller said. "I told him to just be yourself and play football, and he did well. He got through that. That first game for a new kid, with the expectations some have for him, that's a lot on a 16-year-old kid."

The leadup to the Swampcats' season opener was far from typical. With severe heat and storms throwing them curveballs every turn, Miller and his teammates were determined to come out swinging against a high school league foe when their season finally began.

"It was a grind. We really couldn't get outside all week. It felt like two weeks in a row we didn't have a full padded practice because of the heat," Miller said. "We just went out and played hard. The way we played, the toughness we played with, that's what won us the game. A lot of people thought we weren't going to win that game, and we showed how we're going to play this year."

Miller was one of the few players with experience against the Wolverines, sharing a region with East Clarendon when he played at Atlantic Collegiate. He felt like he had a good sense of what EC was trying to do offensively as a result.

"They had a lot of returners on their offense line, and I kinda knew what they were going to do. I knew they were going to line up and run it right at us," said the Swampcat junior. "They were going to see who was the more physical team."

Laurence Manning's biggest questions coming into the game were simply depth and conditioning. Missing their scheduled opener against Williamsburg meant that the 'Cats lost a chance to build up their endurance with actual game reps, especially with limited practice time already. The matchup with EC was Miller's first game as a full-time two-way player, so it was a challenge, but he pushed through to make some critical plays in the win.

"You just have to keep going," Miller said. "At ACA, I didn't play full-time both ways, so that was the first time I played full-time both ways. In the first half, I was fine. I came out, and it was the first play of the second half; I just felt my calf start to cramp. Half of the third quarter, it was straight cramps, but I had to keep going. I'd come out for a play, then I'm back in and it starts to cramp again. A lot of kids who don't usually play defensive tackle - because that's where I got my breaks - really stepped up in a big way, giving me and Tristan (White) some breaks."

Miller was right in the middle of arguably the most important defensive stand Laurence Manning made all night. The 'Cats were nursing a 10-0 lead late in the second quarter when East Clarendon got into the red zone for the first time in the game. EC got inside the 10, but Miller made two critical stops in the backfield. The first was a tackle for a loss with 13 seconds to play before a strip sack, which he recovered, kept the shutout intact.

"We were in the huddle like, 'They're going to run that same play but run the quarterback bootleg off it,'" Miller recalled. "They ran that bootleg and I was right there, made the fumble, and the ball just kind of came right into my hands. That was big."

Miller finished the game with two sacks, two tackles for a loss and six total tackles on defense. He nearly added a safety, but forward progress kept EC out of the end zone on the play.

"Honestly, it was just watching film and seeing what kind of plays they made," Miller said. "All week we practiced that if they pulled the guard, if you follow that guard, you'll be in the backfield to make the play. It's big to make those plays; it turns momentum to your side."

Offensively, Miller had six pancakes and two knockdowns while powering an offensive line that was missing its center and didn't have a ton of game reps together going into the matchup.

"Every game is won on the offensive line," Coach Miller said. "With that being said, this is a build as you go (process). This was their first game playing together as a unit, and that unit has to be solid. We still had a lot of mistakes; four guys would make a block and one would miss, but they kept going and they got better. You could see them through the game get better. When our guys got beat, the next time, they didn't get beat. We're nowhere near where we need to be, but the positive is that we got better through the game and we got better this week in practice."

Now, the Swampcats will look to keep building with a really challenging early season slate. After facing Hammond on Friday, LMA heads to John Paul II before their annual rivalry matchup with Wilson Hall on Sept. 18.

"It was really big for me as a player and our team," Miller said of the win. "We gained a lot of confidence because we made so many mistakes, like we had so many penalties, I think it was 16 penalties for over 100 yards. For us to overcome that and still beat them, that gives us confidence as a team that we can beat anybody as long as we execute and limit the mistakes."