The football team is playing its second to last District 13-5A game on Friday at 7 p.m. against Frisco at the Ford Center. With the team going in with a 2-3 district record and Frisco with a 3-2 record, the game is vital for a chance at postseason play as a loss would eliminate the Redhawks from making the playoffs. 

“The game tonight is important because basically it determines if we make it to the playoffs or not,” senior Tyler Hogg said. “We as a team really want to make it to the playoffs because we haven’t been to the playoffs in around five years so as a coaching staff and a team we are really looking forward to putting Liberty back on the map and being a more dominant team a Liberty should be.”

A loss for the Raccoons doesn’t eliminate Frisco from the playoffs but they are expecting a tough game.

“I’m very impressed with Liberty,” Frisco High School’s head football coach Vance Gibson said. “They have improved week to week and are playing their best football now. It is a big game for both teams with playoff implications, we know we will get Liberty’s best effort, hopefully we will be ready too.  We try to focus on being the best team we can be and improving week to week.  If we can do this the winning and losing will take care of itself.”

The school hasn’t been to the playoffs in five years and some of the players are worried about their reputation within the student body, but hope that tonight’s game will change that.

“To make it to the playoffs would be really big for us because we haven’t been in five years,” Hogg said. “As a team it would be pretty monumental because the 2010 team is held to such high standards but it would restore faith in us from the student population to win and just the school’s over all attitude in the way football is represented throughout the school.”

To break the streak of not making it past district play, the coaches have spoken to the players about what is expected on Friday night.

“We’ve talked about the drought, so to speak, in playoffs,” offensive coordinator Matt Swinnea said. “And the outstanding opportunity that the guys have to sort of get back on the right side of history.”

Although they know what a win would entail, the team is taking it one step at a time and understands that at the end of the day, they just have to play football.

“You can’t avoid the significance of the game,” Swinnea said. “But the reality is that it is just another game in the sense that we have to take care of our business and execute and play good defense and let the chips fall where they may.”