Abseck, Panthers get first home game, face Little Rock Southwest tonight

After games at Longview and Nacogdoches to start the season, Lufkin gets a home game tonight against Little Rock Southwest, a team that last season the Panthers met at a mostly halfway point in Texarkana to play.

Lufkin won last years meeting 57-12.

Texas High was on the road when the two teams met last year, but with a home game for the Tigers this week and the field not available for tonights game, Little Rock Southwest agreed to play in Lufkin.

The Panthers come in at 1-1 with a 41-16 loss to Longview, followed by a 42-14 win over Nacogdoches.

Lufkin, which was ranked No.

15 in Class 5A Division I in Dave Campbells Texas Football preseason poll moved to the No.

10 spot in this weeks rankings.

Little Rock Southwest, a Class 7A team in its sixth year with a football program and in its second season with Chadwick Lewis as head coach, dropped its opener last week 42-0 to Class 6A Lake Hamilton.

Little Rock Southwest is one of 16 Class 7A schools in Arkansas, and for classifications purposes in 2024, the schools enrollment was listed at 1,698.33 students.

Lufkin was listed with an enrollment of 2,159 on the UILs last snapshot date in the fall of 2023.

The Gryphons went 2-9 last season and 2-5 in the Class 7A Central conference and finished sixth out of eight teams.

Lufkin head coach Carl Abseck said with other states having fewer schools and a smaller number of teams in the larger classification, its sometimes hard, especially with just 16 teams in the top classification in Arkansas, to get a good read on the teams and how they compare to their opponents.

Its kind of unique in that respect, but its also hard to get a bearing on who they are and what type of team theyre playing, Abseck said.

Abseck said hes excited for the team to get their first home game tonight.

Its my first home game here and Im excited not to have to get on a bus and go somewhere, Abseck said.

We get to see our fans fill up the stands and be excited about watching some Panther football.

Well have our walk into the stadium and the Sideliners are going to have a tailgate out there and all kinds of stuff.

Its going to be a fun environment to get out there and play.

The kids are excited because theyre going to get to wear their new uniforms finally.

Its going to be a fun evening and another opportunity for us to get better as a team and continue to improve and keep preparing for our district because the districts shaping up to be pretty competitive..

This article has been shared from the original article on lufkindailynews, here is the link to the original article.