In a game that hasn’t counted for much but school pride in years, Juanita faced off against cross-town rival Lake Washington last Friday night in a KingCo conference match. The battle to be Kirkland’s reigning team was a decisive win for the Rebels with a 49-0 final score.

Before the game, current and past Juanita High School alumni gathered to tailgate in the school’s parking lot.

Back when Tom Byrne, a 1985 JHS graduate, was in high school, the Rebels won the state championship two years in a row.

“A lot of us have come back tonight to support the community,” said Byrne.

Dan Michel’s said the Rebels have always been tight with the community. A Rebels football player in 1985-1986, Michel’s line coach was later the best man in his wedding.

During his time with the Rebels, Michel’s said the team did not lose any games his junior or senior year.

“We were really good,” he said. “It’s very exciting. It’s good to see the team come back.”

Lake Washington held their ground in the first quarter, making a solid drive down field, despite a bench filled with various injuries, but when the Rebels started their first drive of the game on the 21-yard line, it was off to the races for Juanita, scoring their first touchdown with 5:17 left quarter for a 7-0 lead.

The Rebels regained control of the ball after Lake Washington stalls on downs and ran out of the rest of the quarter, ending it on the 16-yard line.

Picking up where they left off, Andre Casino crossed the line for a second touchdown of the night with 11:56 left in the half.

The Rebels scored against with 7:22 remaining in the half, but an unsportsmanlike conduct flag pushed their kick off starting point back, but the game moved to a 21-0 match.

Lake Washington benefited from throughout the first half from various dead ball and false start infractions by Juanita, edging the Kangs farther down the field, only to come up short and return the ball to Juanita. The Rebels scored with 4:47 left in the half for a 28-0 lead. But they weren’t done, scoring once more with 2:02 left in the half as Austin Hilliker caught a long pass, to end the first two quarters with a 35-0 lead for Juanita.

“We really worked on this week having a fast tempo on offense, breaking out of the huddle and getting set plays done quicker,” said Juanita head coach Shaun Tarantola. “I felt like we did a pretty good job of that. There are two types of penalties, there’s mental mistakes and physical mistakes. If it’s a physical mistake from a guy making a great effort we can live with that. We’re more upset about the mental mistakes, offsides, those kinds of things that we have to keep getting better at. We don’t want to be a heavily penalized team. Sometimes a consequence of playing very fast, playing very hard and full speed to the whistle, sometimes a negative consequence is you do get called on those effort penalties. We’re alright with the effort penalties, we want to eliminate the mental penalties.”

Juanita celebrated homecoming, with a Casino Royale theme, with a long fireworks display at half time.

Back in action after the break the Rebels made fast work of offensive opportunities, when Casino scored another touchdown with 9:54 left in the clock off a 38-yard run to make it a 42-0 game.

Various roster changes on both sides of the field started the fourth quarter, but Lake Washington couldn’t stop Juanita, which scored once more on an 18-yard run by Cody Otterholt to make it 49-0.

The Rebels advanced to a 6-1 record overall, while the Kangs fell to 3-5 overall.

Injuries have played a significant role in the Lake Washington season, with 11 players out with various issues, according to head coach Steve Supple.

“We have nine guys out and two more lost (Friday),” he said. A big part of that number is because of the new concussion rules in the state, which mean any player with a concussion or showing signs of a concussion must sit out at least one week, depending on the severity of the injury.

“With the concussion rules these days, anytime anyone has post concussion signs they are going to miss a game,” he said. “I literally have seven guys who are (out), either ones that happened recently, like last week, or ones that go back two or three weeks. We just don’t have the depth.”

But while last Friday was a difficult game, the Kangs head to Mercer Island this week for the final game of the regular season.

“I’ve got enough to compete, we’re going to try and get a win,” said Supple of the plan for tonight’s match at Islander Stadium. “We’re playing someone we hope we can compete with.”

Juanita travels to Interlake for the last game of the regular season next Friday, Oct. 29.

“We just want to keep getting better,” said Tarantola of tonight’s game plan. “We’re going to find on film what we need to get better at this week, and hopefully it’s not the same things that we talked about last week. We’ll focus on some new thing so we’re ready to go week 10.”

The Rebels playoff situation depends on tonight’s matches. The team could finish the season in the No. 2 spot in KingCo, meaning the first playoff match would be against the No. 3 WesCo team.