SALEM – Instructively and to one manner of thought unexpectedly, Peyton Lewis' evaluation of Salem High’s most recent football attainment revealed a telling focus.

Lewis, an outside linebacker with frightening speed and quickness, was fresh off the practice field after the first day of field preparation for Saturday’s Region 4D final at top seed E.C. Glass. The topic of was discussion was Salem’s previous game’s 54-37 thrashing of host Louisa County.

Lewis said he was grateful for the win, but dismayed by part of the Spartans’ approach.

“We still have a lot of Day 1 mistakes we’re making that we need to clean up and day in and day out we are doing our best to fix those throughout practice ,” the 6-foot-1, 190-pound junior said. “We allowed 37 points on defense, so we lost personally as a team. The game, we did win.”

Now it is understandable that a linebacker on a 10-2 squad with four shutouts and five more games having yielding no more than two touchdowns would take offense at 37 points. But as he pointed out, Salem did win the game.