The 2-7 Mehlville Senior High School varsity football team will travel to Lafayette Friday night to face the 4-5 Lancers in the start of single-game elimination playoffs.

The Panthers are going to have their hands full against Lafayette, according to Mehlville head coach Kent Heinemann.

“They are very physical up front. I know their record is not like it’s been, but watching them on film, they are a typical Lafayette (team) — you know, big, physical, athletic kids, and we are going to have our hands full,” Heinemann told the Call.

Mehlville ended the regular season last Friday with a 47-7 loss to Pattonville.

The Panthers suffered some injuries in the game early, but that wasn’t the difference-maker, according to Heinemann.

“My first impression is Pattonville is pretty darn good. They are super-talented,” he said. “They are young, but they are very athletic … Defensively, they are constantly moving around and blitzing, and they are very good at what they do.

“We, as usual, we lost lots of guys to injuries. We are even more banged up than we were the week before, and that didn’t help things. But that Pattonville team is very talented.”

Sean Winters had the lone touchdown for Mehlville in the third quarter on a 23-yard reception from quarterback Matt Mik.

Despite knowing ahead of time how much of a challenge Pattonville was going to be, the Mehlville players didn’t let it affect their confidence or effort, Heinemann said.

“I don’t think our kids ever felt like, ‘Oh man, we don’t have a chance here,'” he said. “Our kids generally go into a game optimistic and feeling like we’ve got a good game plan, but we immediately started getting guys banged up having to come out, other guys having to step in.

“It kind of got us out of what we wanted to be defensively and offensively because we were limited with the guys that we had in. But again, they’re a good team. We were banged up and they definitely got the best of us.”