Ridger Sports | No. 7 ’Hawks picked to beat No. 4 Farmington

— Perhaps it is because the business of ranking and picking high school sports teams that participate in football and basketball is in its infancy, that some seemingly contradictory information gets disseminated.

Farmington rose a spot in the weekly Max-Preps/Freeman Arkansas State 4A Rankings from No. 5 to No. 4 with the ’Hawks retaining their No. 7 ranking it held last week. However, the Freeman computers picked our Blackhawks to vanquish the Cardinals by 5 points in a head-to-head matchup, which was set for Tuesday, Jan. 18, in Farmington.

This will be a big week for the boys team as they take on two of the other top three teams in the league. Both the game Tuesday at Farmington and the game Friday, Jan.

21, against Shiloh will be road games in hostile environments. Should the ’Hawks take both contests, it will go along way towards claiming one of the coveted top two seeds in the district tournament coming up in February.

Losing one or both would not doom the ’Hawks, but it would make the road to state easier if they could take the contests.

I only hope that the computers were right and that the ’Hawks won and took control of the 4A-1 yesterday. The chances are there as the ’Hawks have developed a fairly fast paced inside/outside offense with a good defense to balance itout. The Cards have been cutting their teeth early on battling against several large school opponents, as have the ’Hawks. Farmington is hoping to repeat their success of a year ago while the ’Hawks hope to jump back on top of the basketball pile.

The top 10 in the poll changed some from last week. Ranked No.

4 a week ago, Batesville Southside dropped to ninth with ninth- and10th-ranked Heber Springs and Osceola dropping out of the top 10 altogether. Meanwhile, multi-sport champions Valley View vaulted into the top 10 landing in the No. 6 position.

Arkansas State Freeman 4A Poll

1. Jonesboro Westside

2. Little Rock Pulaski

3. McGehee

4. Farmington

5. Dumas

6. Valley View

7. Pea Ridge

8. Malvern

9. Batesville Southside

10. Clarksville

4A-1 District Rankings

1. Farmington

2. Pea Ridge

3. Shiloh

4. Prairie Grove

5. Ozark

6. Gentry

7. Gravette

8. Berryville Cheer squad takes second in state

The Pea Ridge co-ed cheerleading squad took second place at the State 4A Cheerleading Championships last month. They lost the title by a mere 6 points to Washington County rival West Fork.

Northwest Arkansas was well represented in the 4A event as Gentry went on to win the 4A All-Girls cheering competition. They defeated Valley View in a close competition.

The top 10 finishers in the 4A co-ed meet were:

1. West Fork 319

2. Pea Ridge 313

3. Benton Harmony Grove 301

4. Farmington 284

5. Camden Harmony Grove 272

6. Waldron 253

7. East Poinsett County 242

8. Malvern 242

9. Fountain Lake 238

10. Lincoln 232 State finalists will travel this spring

Should any Pea Ridge squads make the state competitions in baseball, softball or track, then they better brace themselves for some serious road time.

Track finalists will be traveling all the way to Pocohontas for their chance for glory. I’ve been to Pocohontas stadium as I coached one of the visiting track teams there some time back. It is way, way, waaaaaaaaay over there in northeast Arkansas and there isn’t any real good way to get there from here. It will be lots of hours of travel time.

The baseball state tournament will be held in Heber Springs, another place with no easy way to get there. Traveling to Harrison, going south through Clinton, then heading east on State Hwy. 16 will get you there. The girls will be traveling to Valley View, just outside Jonesboro for their state. Having been to all these places, I hope none of our athletes have problems with car/bus sickness.

To put it into perspective, if we were qualifiers and if all the state finals were all held in Oklahoma City, we would be spending a lot less time driving.

On the regional side, the baseball boys will go to Ozark with the softball girls going to Clarksville.

While not being all thatclose to Pea Ridge, both those schools are on I-40 so getting there is fairly easy. There is no regional in track with the top two finishers in each event at district qualifying for the state final.

National association says ‘no’ to national championships

The National Federation of High Schools, the group that oversees and regulates high school sporting events, voted no to sanctioning national championship events in the sports of golf and cross country.

The recent vote actually had more in favor of such an idea but they lacked six votes of having the twothirds vote necessary to pass such legislation. The leadership of the NFHS is adamantly opposed to the idea and lobbied hard for member states not to approve it. Eight states did not vote and it is possible that the idea might come up again for a vote in the future.

Golf and cross county were chosen as the target sports because they both had sponsors waiting in the wings and each sport could fairly easily put on a national meet due to the nature of their sports◊◊◊

Editor’s note: John Mc-Gee 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 8 on 01/19/2011