After enduring a 1-9 season in 2025, Lakeside Football enters the 2026 season with something it didn’t have a year ago — experience.
Third-year head coach Terrance Henton welcomes back eight starters on offense and seven on defense, giving the Dragons a veteran foundation as they look to take a significant step forward in the Chagrin Valley Conference.
Henton believes familiarity with the team’s systems could be one of the biggest differences this fall.
“We believe that our biggest strength going into the season will be continuity,” Henton said. “We have a lot of players that have played a few years under our offensive and defensive systems.”
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EXPERIENCE IN THE AIR RAID
That continuity should be particularly important offensively, where quarterback JJ Murphy returns to direct Lakeside’s Air Raid attack.
Murphy won’t be starting over with a new group around him. Wide receivers DaeVeon Gaines and Jorge Diaz return to give him experienced targets in the passing game, while Tristan Westerfield and Aaron Artman provide veteran leadership in the trenches.
After going through a difficult season together, that group enters 2026 with a better understanding of the offense and what Henton expects from it.
The Dragons also could receive an immediate boost from running back Masceo Boles, one of the newcomers Henton expects to make an impact. Cameron Addair and Dashawn Lane also have opportunities to carve out significant roles on both sides of the ball.
For a program that relied heavily on inexperienced players a year ago, having that combination of returning starters and emerging talent provides reason for optimism.
YOUNG, BUT NO LONGER INEXPERIENCED
The unusual part about Lakeside’s roster is that the Dragons can simultaneously be experienced and young.
Many of the players returning with varsity experience were freshmen and sophomores when they were thrust into prominent roles last season.
“Although continuity may be an asset of ours, our biggest question mark will be our youthfulness,” Henton said. “We are still a young team. We have a lot of returning starters, but we started a lot of freshmen and sophomores a year ago.”
That youth contributed to some difficult moments in 2025, but it also accelerated the development of a roster that now enters the new season with considerably more varsity experience than its age might suggest.
Some of those young Dragons already have played the equivalent of a full varsity season or more.
“Growth is evident in our young men,” Henton said. “They have made a conscious choice to do the work and extra work. Regardless of their age, a lot of them have played 10 to 15 varsity games. We have some talented young men. It’s our job to put them in advantageous positions, and it’s their job to take advantage of those opportunities when they come.”
That experience could be invaluable as Lakeside attempts to turn close plays, missed opportunities and lessons learned in 2025 into better results this fall.
PUTTING ‘US’ BEFORE ‘ME’
Henton isn’t defining progress solely by the number of games Lakeside wins.
The Dragons spent the offseason working to establish the mindset Henton believes is necessary to build a successful program.
That starts with putting the team ahead of the individual.
“There are so many stages to our success and what we will call successful,” Henton said. “A big key to our success will be putting ‘Us’ in front of ‘Me.’ We can do more than I can mentality. This offseason we emphasized finishing and intent. Don’t finish the rep or play thinking about high fives — finish it with the intent of winning or helping.”
Finishing has been a major point of emphasis.
For Lakeside, that means more than completing a drill or reaching the end of a practice. Henton wants his players attacking each repetition with a purpose and understanding how their individual responsibilities contribute to the team’s success.
The response throughout the offseason has given him reason to believe the Dragons are moving in the right direction.
The players who were forced to grow up quickly last season have continued putting in the work, and Lakeside now has a core that understands both the offensive and defensive systems as well as the expectations of the coaching staff.
READY FOR THE NEXT STEP
A 1-9 record made 2025 a difficult season, but Lakeside could eventually benefit from having so many young players gain varsity experience at the same time.
Now, the Dragons get to find out how much those growing pains were worth.
Murphy returns with experience at quarterback and familiar weapons in Gaines and Diaz. Westerfield and Artman give the Dragons veterans in the trenches, while Boles brings another option to the backfield. Addair and Lane could further strengthen a roster that suddenly has both established varsity players and newcomers capable of competing for significant roles.
More importantly, Lakeside isn’t installing something completely new or asking an inexperienced roster to learn on the fly.
The Dragons have been through it before.
They know the offense. They know the defense. They know what Friday nights feel like.
The challenge now is turning that continuity into victories.
For Henton and the Dragons, the path forward begins with the mentality they emphasized throughout the offseason — putting “Us” ahead of “Me,” finishing with intent and taking advantage of opportunities when they arrive.
If Lakeside can do that consistently, a young team that gained plenty of experience the hard way in 2025 could look much different in 2026.
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* Historical series data: Records shown are based on the OV Sports Engine historical football database beginning with the 1972 season. Earlier meetings may not be included.
LAKESIDE DRAGONS Football
2026-2027 Lakeside Dragons Football Schedule
Date Opponent Series* Result Time Location Aug. 22, 2026
Saturday2-0 W 14-7 7:00 PM Korb Field Aug. 28, 2026
Friday8-14 L 6-41 7:00 PM Lakeside Sep. 4, 2026
Friday
Rhodes0-2 L 6-21 7:00 PM Lakeside Sep. 11, 2026
Friday0-11 L 7-41 7:00 PM South Watch Sep. 18, 2026
Friday14-6 L 20-35 7:00 PM Lakeside Sep. 25, 2026
Friday6-4 L 18-20 7:00 PM Lakeside Oct. 2, 2026
Friday5-11 L 24-56 7:00 PM North Watch Oct. 9, 2026
Friday1-0 W 27-13 7:00 PM Lakeside Oct. 16, 2026
Friday2-11 L 7-73 7:00 PM Chardon Watch Oct. 23, 2026
Friday5-19 L 7-49 7:00 PM Madison
Lutheran East
Geneva Eagles
Willoughby South Rebels
Edgewood Warriors
Harvey Red Raiders
North Rangers
Lutheran West Longhorns
Chardon Hilltoppers
Madison Blue Streaks
