Lake Travis head coach Chad Morris circled the game in July. He knew what was coming, and a rematch with Cibolo Steele (9-2) was waiting for Lake Travis (11-0) if it won a district title.

He wasn’t alone. Senior linebacker Ian Lazarus said he was looking forward to playing Steele again – in August.

What’s interesting about the Cavaliers’ determination to beat Steele this time around, is that they beat Steele the first time around, 38-21. True, they trailed 21-14 at halftime, but the way they talk about it, they lost that game.

“Well, I think it’s a game in which the kids honestly feared at halftime that it could have been over,” Morris said. “That was really the only time in that playoff run that we thought it could be over, so I think the kids might have felt that they weren’t as mentally prepared as they should have been. I don’t think we weren’t prepared for Steele – I think we were, but there was genuine fear in that game where there wasn’t at any other point in the playoffs.”

Lake Travis hasn’t had to get up for a game since playing Hendrickson five weeks ago, breezing through the four teams since by essentially stepping on the field. Now, Lake Travis goes from playing arguably one of the worst teams it played this season in Crockett, to one of the best in Steele. One would think such a dramatic leap in one week would be a bad thing. The Cavaliers disagree.

“I’m just excited to get up for a big game,” Lake Travis receiver Conner Floyd said. “We haven’t had one of those in a long time. It will be nice to gear up for something.”

It shows the amount of respect the Cavaliers have for the Knights, and it’s not a respect they reserve for everyone. Steele plays disciplined, hard-nosed football, and Knight head coach Mike Jinks gets a lot of praise from Morris.

That’s why he was able to count on seeing the Knights again in the second round.

“We knew in our region, this was the game that it was going to come down to,” Morris said. “So far, everything has led up to this point pretty much how I thought it would, except I wasn’t sure we’d get through our regular season unscathed. I thought we might hit a bump in the road at some point early against one of the 5A teams.”

The hype behind the game has built for months, not only in the Lake Travis ranks, but also in the media. It will be Lake Travis’ most anticipated game since a week two showdown with Westlake, but on a much bigger stage in the Alamodome and with a lot more on the line.

“The thing that I’ve found about our kids here is that the bigger game, the bigger they play,” Morris said. “I think a lot of it has got to do with the fact that these kids understand that if they don’t give it everything – it could be over. These kids have always been very aware of that.”

Steele is even more aware, having actually lost the game that the Cavalier players seem to treat as a badge of honor. Which is why the game has all the makings of a classic. It’s rare that this kind of build-up comes with high school playoff games. And with so many key players returning next year to each team, we could be looking at a trilogy before all is said and done. And that would seem right since all the great rivalries have chapters.

■ While I’m not one to look ahead, there’s been a sudden flood of talk in both the Statesman’s Thursday online chats at 1 p.m. and in a few other forums about the possibility of a Coastal Bend team ending Lake Travis’ run.

If anyone in the region is going to keep up with Lake Travis, it’s going to have to be Cibolo Steele or Alamo Heights. That’s where the debate ends, and those teams would handle the Coastal Bend teams, as well.

As for those Coastal Bend schools – sure, anything could happen, but the evidence suggests other wise.

Lake Travis has beaten three Coastal Bend teams by a combined score of 157-89 in the two previous seasons. Everyone likes to talk about how Alice almost beat Lake Travis last season, but Beeville Jones in 2007 was the best Coastal Bend team the Cavs have faced during their 41-game winning streak.

Lake Travis held off Jones in a 57-43 shootout, and the game wasn’t over until the final minutes of the fourth quarter. While Alice trimmed to a 35-10 halftime deficit to 35-32 midway through the third quarter, Lake Travis blew away the Coyotes by over three scores, 55-32, in what was definitely the most entertaining playoff game the Cavs played in last season. But it wasn’t the biggest scare.

It doesn’t matter what you say, though. The Coastal Bend teams have some of the best fans in the state. Alice and Beeville Jones fans nearly doubled Lake Travis fans in both meetings in the Alamodome, and former Lake Travis quarterback Garrett Gilbert admitted that other than the state championship in 2007 against Highland Park, the Alice and Beeville Jones games were the loudest. Pride comes the minute the colors are worn in the Coastal Bend, so it’s no surprise the fans believe in their teams so much.

It’s not that Coastal Bend teams aren’t talented – they most definitely are.

But they appear to be allergic to defense. You have to be if a team is averaging over 50 points per game against you in the playoffs. It’s just not a good match up for those teams. History has shown the best way to beat Lake Travis is to pound the ball on the ground, keep the Cavalier offense off the field and force a few crucial turnovers. Coastal Bend teams haven’t shown that they can do it.

To be fair, no one has ever accused Lake Travis of having a shutdown defense, but the Cavaliers are winning each game by an average of over 38 points, and had a schedule that included a 5A district champion and two 5A district runner-ups. So the defense isn’t exactly holding Lake Travis back, either, with the number of points allowed dropping each season since 2007, from 21.9 to 16 to 13.82.

And in even worse news for Cavalier opponents, Lake Travis is scoring more points this year. Through 11 games in 2008, Lake Travis had 516 points.

Through 11 games in 2009, Lake Travis has 574.