PEA RIDGE — With football season opening at home, I was looking forward to watching Tony Travis’ 2012 ’Hawks to see what would be in store for us this year.
When the ’Hawks came onto the field before the kickoff, the number and size of Pea Ridge’s gridiron gladiators were decidedly more impressive than in years past.
With a large, experienced senior class to go with talented and dedicated underclassmen, I believe the 2012 ’Hawks will be the best high school football team that I have ever written for in my 30 odd years as a sportswriter. Combine that with the knowledge, experience and wisdom of the three veteran coaches on the ’Hawks’ sideline, the upshot is that the ’Hawks will have their best opportunity in a long time to get into the playoffs and get into them deep.
Elkins was stymied by the ’Hawks’ play, both offensively and defensively.
In my spot in the lower press box, I usually don’t sit far from the visiting team’s spotter, the guy in the headset who tells the coach on the field how their players are performing from a better vantage point. I couldn’t help but hear the Elkins man tell their coach “Hey, our boys are where they are supposed to be, it’s just that the Pea Ridge players just keep knocking us out of the way.”
I saw a lot of hustle on the field, a lot of crisp blocking and a bunch ofspirit. I didn’t see a single ’Hawk taking a break during any of the plays.
For the first time that I can remember, the ball on our point after touchdown kick went over the goal post and was still rising as it passed. Perhaps a small thing, unless you realize that we now have a field goal weapon we didn’t have before.
Early in the second half, a ’Hawk blocked a Elkins punt which gave us possession on the 1-yard line.
After we punched it in to assume a 43-0 lead, coach Tony Travis emptied the bench with reserve players. When the ’Hawks were back on the Elkins’ 11-yard line a few minutes later, Travis passed up a sure field goal to let the reserves run a play on fourth down. The play failed but Travis demonstrated the class that good coaches have in trying to avoid running up scores.
With the new field soon to be built, gone will be the days of walking on mud and grass, visiting team tents, and crowding into a small, outdated press box.
While I look forward to those great days in the future, I will kind of miss the peculiarities of the old Blackhawk facility.
The 4A-1 goes 8-0 in first week
I believe it is a rare occurrence for a conference to have all eight of their teams open the season with victories. This is exactly what happened with the teams of District 4A-1.
Leading the way with points scored and margin of victory were our Blackhawks with their 49-7 drubbing of Elkins. Prairie Grove’s beat Lavaca with the Tigers’ 41-0 conquest of the Golden Arrows.
As expected, Ozark bombed Booneville’s young, inexperienced team 27-6, and Lincoln thumped Westville (Okla.) 37-0.
A little surprising was Farmington’s 14-8 squeaker over the Huntsville Eagles.
The Cards pounded them 42-10 last year. The Cardinals lost heavily to graduation and perhaps they will not be the team that usually comes from that perennial contender.
I blew the call when I predicted that both Gravette and Gentry would go down in their opener.
Gentry won a wild 24-18 contest with West Fork.
Gravette throttled Lamar by 27-6. I recently learned that 12 Bentonville Tiger football players transferred to Gravette this summer.
The eighth win of the week was the forfeit victory that Berryville gained over Marshall. The small school near the Buffalo River lacked having enough players to play this year, leading them to forfeit all 10 games in 2012.
This week:
Prairie Grove Tigers aretraveling to Morrilton to play the 5A Devil Dogs.
The ’Dogs are ranked fourth in 5A and had the firepower to blast 7A Russellville 42-14 last year. I see no way to a Tiger victory but the Prairie Grove coach will see where the team’s shortcomings may lie.
Gravette is hosting Booneville, a team fresh off a shellacking by Ozark.
With the Lions’ infusion of transfers, they will be good enough to fend off a very green but talented Booneville. Berryville’s undefeated season will come to an end when they host Huntsville, which played down to the wire against a supposedly good Farmington team.
Ozark plays Clarksville.
The Panthers have moved up to 5A this season but are coming off a losing record as a 4A team in 2011.
Ozark pounded Clarksville 42-21 in 2011 and the odds are more stacked with the ’Billies this year.
Farmington takes on West Fork, a team they narrowly defeated 12-6 in 2011. Both teams lost most of their offense from last year, and both teams were a little sloppy last week.
Either team could win, but I think that Farmington being at home will make the difference.
Lincoln has an interesting game with Stilwell this week. The Wolves are 1-0 after blasting Westville but now are traveling to play the team that got their old quarterback Cheyanne Vaughan. Vaughan was an all-state player for Lincolnin 2010 and 2011 but left for Stilwell when the Wolves were moved up to 4A this season. If he is still as good as projected, Lincoln will go down. Playing against their old leader may inspire the Wolves, however.
Gentry is off to a 1-0 start but will travel to Charleston to the play the perennial 3A powerhouse.
The Pioneers played the Tigers close last year, losing only by a 12-6 count.
If the Pioneers were just lucky in their win last week, they won’t have much chance in this road trip. If, however, the west county boys really are improving, then maybe there is a chance. Probably not.
Lastly, Pea Ridge hosts Green Forest, a team they beat 20-14 last year.
The Tigers only won two games in 2011, beating Marshall and Berryville which are probably thetwo worst 3A-4A teams in north Arkansas. They are ranked sixth in their conference and 40th in 3A and were blasted by Reeds Spring (Mo.) last week.
The odds are with the ’Hawks.
It looks like the 4A-1 may go 4-4 this week. The final week of the pre-conference games will be the toughest one of the three with a lot of highly-rated teams on the district’s schedule.
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Editor’s note: John McGee is an award-winning columnist and sports writer. He 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].
The opinions of the writer are his own, and are not necessarily those of The Times.
News, Pages 8 on 09/05/2012