PEA RIDGE — In a game many thought might be the blowouts of blowouts, Shiloh topped Pea Ridge 35-0 in conference action last week.
Pea Ridge began the season as the youngest and most inexperienced high school football in the 4A-1 District if not the whole state. Coach Tony Travis’ Blackhawks have suffered numerous injuries and have lost players through suspensions as well to make competing in a tough conference that much tougher.
Across the field Friday was a team loaded with seniors, numerous NCAA Division I recruits, with speed and talent in great abundance.
In the game Friday, Shiloh scored twice in very quick order and looked poised to hang a record amount of points on our ’Hawks. Instead, after getting their big lead, Shiloh ran in their reserve and backup players for most of the game to keep the score from getting out of hand.
The game was over early and the Springdale folks acknowledged it. Pea Ridge had minus yardage in the first half and if there ever was a mismatch on paper, this game was it.
After the 4A-1 member schools voted Shiloh’s junior high team out of the conference last spring, many predicted the high school team would take it out on the membership by beating conference schools as badly as possible. That has not happened and most likely won’t happen as Shiloh has shown restraint in games to date.
Perhaps it was the 80-26 pounding Shiloh suffered on national television that gave them an insight on how it feels to be beaten to the point of embarrassment. With the new AAA rules that will put a big crimp on Shiloh’s ability to lure away stars from other schools rosters, it might well be that in the near future, they will have to rely on players that have been at Shiloh from the beginning.
Their ability to field teams with the talent of schools in the 7A classification could be winding down.
Pea Ridge is a growing school with a good program in place. Being one of the smallest schools in 4A, the ’Hawks will be in the 4A for a long, long time.
With the growth, comes more players and with more players, comes greater depth, better competition and more likely, more victories. In the not too dis tant future, the ’Hawks will be a team to reckon with.
True enough that the ’Hawks have some of the worst facilities for a football team of their classification and that has probably meant the loss of potential players. Folks moving into the area who have sons who are 5-feet 10-inches tall, 175 pounds, and very athletic very often look to locate in a school district of a midsize school rather than try to compete on the level of Rogers or Bentonville schools. The size of football players in those schools have become very similar in size and talent in a lot of small college teams. Gravette has attracted a lot of families to move into their district because of their facilities and for the opportunities that small schools afford. Pea Ridge has a great location being so close to large scale employers such as WalMart, Tyson, etc.
Having said all that, Pea Ridge is on the way up and things look brighter for the future than they might appear at the present. The potential is there.
4A-1 conference race still mixed up
As most pundits agreed in the pre-season, Gravette and Shiloh would lead the charge in the 2010 conference slate. After that, all previous bets are off.
Ozark, considered by many as having perhaps one of their worst teams in recent memory, has rebounded to stand tied with the two aforementioned teams with 2-0 marks in league play. A resurgent Berryville, which ended their pre-conference play by pounding Green Forest, lost 47-13 to the Hillbillies.
Highly regarded Farmington did manage to snap their losing record but could only muster 9 points in a narrow 9-3 win over arch-rival Prairie Grove.
That particular game was 0-0 until the fourth quarter.
Perennial league also ran Gentry has flxed some muscle, coming close to upsetting Gravette in a 25-20 thriller. The Pioneers had the ball in the final minutes trailing by a mere 5 points before the Lions stiffened their defense to deny Gentry the comeback.
This week the ’Hawks travel to Gentry to face the much improved Pioneers.
They are once again led by a Ramsey, this time in the person of Eathen. This particular Ramsey was primarily a defensive player in 2009, had a coming out party at the ’Hawks’ expense last year, rushing for a lot of yards and a touchdown to upset what looked like what might have been a Pea Ridge victory. Ramsey is the nephew of Pea Ridge School Board member Josh Ramsey and the son of Pioneer coach and former allstate athlete Daniel Ramsey 4A-1 teams sink in poll
Outside of Shiloh hanging on to the top spot- (more like owning the top spot), other teams in the state 4A poll aren’t faring as well as in earlier seasons.
Ozark is now the highest ranked team in the league after Shiloh, coming in at the 17th position. Gravette is close behind in the 18th spot with Gentry holding the fourth best spot in the poll at 25th.
The 7-4A District is showing some muscle with the No. 2, No. 4 and No. 5 teams all hailing from their conference. This week No.
2 Pulaski Academy (4-1) plays winless DeQueen with No. 4 Nashville playing a good Oak Grove squad (4-1). Ashdown, No.
5, plays 13th-ranked Malvern and the state’s No. 3team, Booneville (coach Travis’ hometown) plays 30th-ranked Dover.
The current district and state Hooten’s rankings are: 1-4A polls Dist. State Team 1st 1st Shiloh (4-1) 2nd 17th Ozark (3-2) 3rd 18th Gravette (5-0) 4th 25th Gentry (3-2) 5th 28th Farmington (2-3) 6th 32nd Prairie Grove (2-3) 7th 39th Berryville (1-4) 8th 40th Pea Ridge (1-4)
There are currently six teams that have not won a game this year in the 4A (Osceola, De-Queen, DeWitt, Cave City, Southside Batesville and Jonesboro Westside) with seven teams remaining undefeated (Ashdown, Booneville, Valley View, Gravette, Mena, Highland and Clinton). Curiously enough, Clinton’s 5-0 mark has them ranked 21st in the state with Osceola’s 0-5 record not far behind with a 26th overall ranking.
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Editor’s note: John McGee is the art teacher at Pea Ridge elementary schools, coaches elementary track and writes a regular sports column for The TIMES. He can be contacted through The Times at [email protected].
Sports, Pages 10 on 10/06/2010