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First-year Leonardtown football coach Anthony Pratley stepped to the microphone in front of approximately 200 parents and players sitting in the auditorium and told them they were going to lose.

It wasn't a shock. Leonardtown had won six games during the previous eight years.

"You're going to get beat," Pratley recalled saying. "You're going to fumble, and you're going to make mistakes. But you just go out and do it again and do it better."

So when Leonardtown opened the season with four straight losses, including 59-0 to No. 6 Westlake and 35-0 to Patuxent, Pratley remained patient.

"I just told them to keep the faith," Pratley said. "I think that has embodied our season. Westlake manhandled us, and my players could have said, 'Oh, here we go again.' But they kept the faith. I kept saying, 'Things will get better. Things will get better.' And now things are a lot better."

Leonardtown (3-4, 3-4 Southern Maryland Athletic Conference) has won three straight games heading into tomorrow's SMAC matchup against Lackey, the conference's other hot team besides undefeated Westlake and Patuxent. Lackey (5-2, 5-1) has won five straight games after opening the season with losses to Urbana and Patuxent.

The Raiders hadn't won three games in a season since 1998 and hadn't had a three-game win streak since 1997, when they went 6-4. Leonardtown's seniors had won two games during their high school careers entering this season, so when the team defeated Calvert, 30-21, last week at homecoming, senior running back Mike Hebb called it "huge."

"It was the first time they got to feel what it was like to be at the homecoming dance with a victory," Pratley said. "Just to see the smiles on their faces, that's why you coach."

Pratley, who previously was a high school defensive coordinator in his home town of Frankfurt, Mich., isn't the abrasive type when it comes to coaching. Hebb said he has heard Pratley scream only a few times, and that was purely motivational. Pratley's hero is Indianapolis Colts Coach Tony Dungy.

"Kill them with kindness," Pratley said of his approach, straight from the Dungy playbook.

Pratley lathered kind words on Hebb, who leads the SMAC in rushing yards with 982. Hebb has excelled despite having to learn a new formation his season. He was accustomed to an I-formation offense, but now he has grown comfortable in Pratley's "mutt" formation, which spreads out players more.

Hebb is looking forward to a showdown with Michael Johnson, the SMAC's second-leading rusher, and said it took a little time to get used to the formation, but that wasn't the reason for Leonardtown's slow start.