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The year was 1980. The Redskins had yet to win a Super Bowl. The Fairfax County

and Herndon parkways were a fraction of what they are today. The Reston Town

Center was only a twinkle in the Dulles Corridor's eye. And the two local high

schools, Herndon and South Lakes, were scheduled to meet for the first time on

the football field.

The Hornets and coach Don Noll were in the midst of putting together six

consecutive winning seasons, while across town, South Lakes, which opened in

1978, was just getting its feet wet. In the week prior to the game, Noll told

The Observer that there was much anticipation for the game since the Seahawks

were fielding a full team for the first time.

But while the anticipation was high in what everyone hoped would be an exciting

inaugural game between the schools, Herndon entered as a heavy favorite thanks

to a grueling running game led by tailback Mark Brown, who that year paced the

Northern Region in touchdowns and led the Hornets to an 8-2 record. The

favorites would prevail, 28-0, as Brown ran for 280 yards and four touchdowns on

43 carries.

The groundwork had been laid for what would become one of the region's fiercest

rivalries. South Lakes would rebound from that loss to win the next four

contests between the schools and would ultimately win seven of 10 contests

during the 1980s.

Four times that decade, Herndon would carry a winning record into the season's

final game against South Lakes, only to lose. In 1983, both teams entered the

game undefeated in the Great Falls District, but the Seahawks would erase a 10-7

halftime deficit and claim the district championship with a 21-18 win, ending

Herndon's season with an 8-2 record. Some that were at that game can still

recall a couple of questionable calls made by the officials that led Noll to say

after the game, "The kids played hard, like they have all season. I was

disappointed in the officiating. We should have won."

The Seahawks' hold on the series continued through Dennis "Butch"

Baughan's tenure as the Hornets' coach, however ended when Tommy Meier replaced

Baughan in 1990. With Meier at the helm, Herndon won that fall against South

Lakes, 31-7, and began a decade in which they would ride an offense that

produced a 1,000-yard rusher each season, make five trips to the Group AAA

Northern Region Division 6 playoffs, and take nine of the 10 match-ups against

the Seahawks.

The only South Lakes win in the 90s came in 1991, when they took advantage of

six Herndon turnovers in a 24-0 win, the last shut out to date in the series.

"I would think that we would play better in such a big game," Meier

told The Observer after the loss. "But that wasn't the case. South Lakes

put it to us, and that was evident."

A year later, Meier was determined to make amends for the embarrassing defeat.

"Post that score on the wall," Meier said of the previous season's

shut out. "They are the team that our kids most want to win against."

That they did, racing out to a 35-7 halftime lead in what would be a 60-7

shellacking. The win clinched the Hornets' second playoff berth in three years,

and began a stretch in which Herndon would win 10 straight games between the

teams. The streak ended last fall, when the Seahawks upended the Hornets, 12-7,

in Reston as it completed a 7-3 regular season before going on to win the

Division 5 Region title.

"It's always your biggest game of the year, no matter what the records

are," said 1994 Herndon graduate Danny Steeper, who played in three games

against South Lakes, later moving on to play at James Madison University.

"Coach Meier always had a systematic approach to preparing for a game, and

how he motivated his players. But he knew when we played South Lakes, he didn't

have to motivate us. He knew that we would be up already."

"The underlying thing about this rivalry is that it is a sense of pride for

the town. It gives everyone in the community something to look forward to."

Dozens of players that would move on to play Division I college football have

been matched against each other in the rivalry, and the result has been some

great games and even greater individual performances.

In 1985, for example, the Hornets had the region's top team, going 10-0 during

the regular season, and its top player in wide out Barry Johnson, who would be

named the All-Met Offensive Player of the Year before going on to star at the

University of Maryland and with the Denver Broncos. In the game against South

Lakes, Johnson caught five passes for 133 yards and two touchdowns in a 43-14

Herndon victory, and the Hornets carried the only undefeated season in school

history into the regional playoffs. (They would defeat Chantilly in the region

semifinals before losing to T.C. Williams, 16-11, in the championship game.)

The most exciting game between the schools occurred in 1994. Neither team was in

contention for the playoffs, so only pride was on the line when Herndon pitted

its lightning quick tailback, Kwarteng Adu-Gyamfi, against South Lakes' passing

attack led by quarterback Brian Cordyack.

Adu-Gyamfi seemed to glide threw the Seahawks' defense on an 89-yard kickoff

return for a touchdown and on a 79-yard touchdown run en route to 210 yards on

the ground. But Cordyack and South Lakes nearly stole the show when the junior

signal caller connected on a touchdown pass to Kevin Winston with 1:49 to play,

cutting the Seahawks' deficit to 21-20. His emotions running high in a game with

so much pride on the line, South Lakes coach Bob Graumann decided to go for the

two-point conversion and the win rather than kick the extra point and likely

send the game into overtime.

But Graumann's decision backfired when the conversion attempt fell incomplete,

and on the ensuing on-side kick attempt, Herndon's Justin Kelly fell on the ball

to preserve the victory and avoid Meier's first losing season at Herndon.

"What I remember of it, it was always a big deal," said Cordyack, who

would later play for one season at the University of Virginia. "We weren't

very good when I was there, so it wasn't a big deal in terms of getting into the

playoffs or anything. It was just huge in terms of a rivalry standpoint."

"There was always a buzz around the locker room the week before that

game," Cordyack said. "The coaches would all try to get us hyped up,

so you got an idea from that really how big the game was. With a game like that

there's more than who has more talent on paper. No matter the records, anybody

could win that game."

Despite a number of changes around the game, the rivalry between the schools has

remained undeterred. In 1994, the Great Falls District was renamed the Concorde

District, and schools such as Centreville and Westfield have entered the fold in

recent years. In 1998, the Baron Cameron Bowl was created in reference to Baron

Cameron Road, the major artery connecting the two schools, giving the winning

team rights to a trophy for the year following the game. And then, in a

controversial move that has sparked much debate, South Lakes last year switched

football affiliations to the Liberty District. (This school year, all Seahawks

sports teams will be participating in the Liberty District). The end result of

the switch is that the Herndon-South Lakes game will now be played early in the

season, when teams play their non-district opponents, rather than in

mid-November in the season's final game.

Many involved in the rivalry between the two schools were upset that the

football game will no longer be played the last week of the season, and that the

basketball teams will no longer be competing for the same district crown.

"It's kind of like Miami and Florida State. They've always had the rivalry

with them both being in state," Steeper said. "But now that they're

going to be the in the same conference, I think its going to add even more

intrigue to it. That's what I think may be missing now between Herndon and South

Lakes, that extra intrigue."

Nonetheless, the game will still be as exciting as always once the teams take

the field tonight, both having won their season openers last Friday.

"It's always a big game, and it's exciting," said Joe Trabucco, who is

in his second season as South Lakes' coach. "It's a big rivalry game. I

have not been here long enough to get caught up in it, but the kids certainly

have."

Read ALL

the details about this rivalry here: V.I.P.

Joseph

F. Kamide

Co-Host, "The Coaches Corner" radio show

Monday nights from 6-7 p.m. on WAGE 1200 AM

www.thecoachescorner.tv

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sports Columnist, The Observer Newspapers

www.observernews.com

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