Football: Their Postseason Run pt.2

After an exciting game this past Friday, the varsity football team beat La Jolla in a 41-25 final. Our Scotties left everything on the field and played to move on in the CIF postseason. Before the game I interviewed senior kicker Aubrey Laue to get her opinion on the night’s match up.
I started by asking how the overall season has been. She responded, “it’s been up and down you know, we didn’t start off too great, a few losses. But our schedule was really tough though, so I feel like that definitely prepared us for tonight. Playing hard teams, we knew how to face that challenge. By the end of our season we started to play some good football and we are really looking forward to the playoffs tonight.”
Next I asked her about the specific best and worst parts of the season. Aubrey started with, “the best part for me personally was the Homecoming game, because of the game winning kick by me. I think that game was also really good for the team in general because we went 0-2 and really needed a win for our confidence. So I think everyone was super happy and hype after that. For the worst moment, that was probably our Edison game. We started out slow and ended up putting our head in the dirt, it just wasn’t good.”
When asked about the game tonight, she described how supposedly La Jolla was a decent team, however our Highlanders should be able to beat them, and obviously they were. The defense held La Jolla to only a few touchdowns and had many electric tackles, and our offense rocked the field with many exciting runs.
I asked Laue to talk me through the team’s pregame rituals, as well as some of her own. “I just go out there and warm up, then the team goes into the locker room for a pregame speech, but usually I stay out taking more kicks just to make sure my mind and body are right before the game.”
I questioned about this specific playoff run and how it has compared to others she has been a part of in the past, she elucidated that, “last year we were open division which is very different. But the past few years it hasn’t gone very well, we lost in the first round both years. But this year we prepped differently, we took our bye-week differently and now we are feeling really good about tonight.”
I let Laue go to prepare for the game but as I final question I asked her how she felt about the game possibly being her last as a Helix Highlander. She responded wholeheartedly, “it’s really sad, I feel like if we lose tonight, hopefully we don’t, I will be really upset because playing football at Helix has been such a huge part of my life. It’s been such an amazing experience and obviously I will not be playing football again after high school so thinking that this could be the end is really devastating. Even last year, after we lost our last game I cried so hard even though I knew I was coming back the next year. But this year is going to hit really hard. Just being a senior in general, obviously it’s really sad but I’m also excited for my life afterwards.”
After the Friday win, it looks like we will play Mater Dei Catholic on the 22. I’m not sure where it will be played but I’m sure the school will post about it. Be sure to support our team! Go Scotties!
Below is the link for our divisions’ schedule! Good luck Highlanders!!
2024 CIF San Diego Section Football Championships (California) (Division II)