When Lakeland High School’s football team won its homecoming game Friday against Hickory High School, most folks would have expected the players and coaches to head off to the dance or home with a night of celebration in mind.

And it’s likely that many members of the team did just that. But they also had a plan to be up bright and early Saturday morning to do something to bless a couple of long-term friends of the school.

Mary and Joseph Boone are former Lakeland employees, and their grandsons have played football for the Cavaliers. They have a bond with the school that still remains strong.

So when Garrett Whitley, a Cavs’ football player, learned that the Boones’ home had flooded during Hurricane Matthew, a storm that destroyed homes and took lives from the Caribbean to Virginia, he went to his coach with a request for help.

And then the team stepped in to help friends and family of the Boones clear the wet furniture and debris from the home, which had suffered from more than five feet of water spilling into it.

They could have spent Saturday morning recovering from the game. They could have slept in after the dance. They could have gone away for the weekend after a long week of storm-related worry. Instead, they chose to help a neighbor.

“They didn’t have to do this,” Lakeland coach Kevin Knight said. “They had a bunch of other things they could have been doing on a Saturday. But they wanted to help out.”

We think it says a lot for Lakeland — a school that was honored for sportsmanship by the Virginia High School League last year — that its football team would have acted so selflessly. It also says much about the students’ parents. And, perhaps most telling is what it says about the team’s coach, who clearly demonstrates a sense of service for his players to follow.

Good work, Cavs!