Lakeland High School’s football team could not take advantage of all the opportunities its defense created on Friday night, allowing host Grassfield High School to end its own season with a 35-21 victory over the Cavs.

Cavaliers coach Bryan Potts was awaiting confirmation on his team’s playoff berth in the first moments of Saturday morning, but he had already confirmed several things about his team’s performance against the Grizzlies.

“I think we left too many points on the field,” he said. “We created five turnovers, but we turn around and turned the ball over four times.”

The five turnovers came from Lakeland’s dynamic secondary, led by junior defensive back William Barnes, who posted his third three-interception game of the season.

Senior defensive back Convon’Tra Revell added two picks of his own.

“I think whenever you create five turnovers on defense, you’ve got to walk away with points,” Potts said. “We didn’t create any points off of turnovers we had.”

Grassfield was still able to convert some big plays, including when its senior quarterback, Brett Smith, ran about 65 yards on a bootleg route for a touchdown.

Cavaliers sophomore wide receiver Alajuwun Langston got his team into the game in the second quarter with a 62-yard touchdown catch from senior quarterback Miles Goodman, making it 14-7.

But Grizzlies junior wideout Grant Holloway caught a pass later in the quarter and took it about 40 yards for a touchdown, making the score 21-7 at halftime.

Goodman closed out the scoring for Lakeland on a two-yard quarterback sneak with a little more than five minutes left in the game.

Potts said the Virginia High School League would not confirm if Lakeland (3-7) is in the Region 4A South playoffs until Monday.

He admitted that 3-7 surely does not sound like a playoff team, but said, “I think we did some things early in the year,” including coming up with a big victory over Group 5A’s Great Bridge High School.

That victory means a nice increase in Lakeland’s power points rating when Great Bridge defeats strong opponents like it did on Friday night, playing fellow Group 5A school Indian River High School.

“I think Great Bridge beating Indian River helped us tremendously,” Potts said.

If Lakeland makes the playoffs, the coach knew what his approach will be in preparing — something similar to his regular season approach.

“If we’re in, we’ve got another week to get better, improve,” he said.