Ridger Sports

Jr. boys Blackhawks unscathed at 5-0

The Pea Ridge junior boys Blackhawk football team has steamrolled the competition as they have reached mid-season with an unblemished 5-0 record.

The ’Hawks dismantled Lincoln last week and travel to Gentry tomorrow night to face the Pioneers.

The gridiron ’Hawks are averaging roughly fi ve to six touchdowns per game while the first team defense hasn’t been scored on all season.

The two weeks after this will tell the tale of the 2013 season. A week from Friday, the boys will host Ozark, a team they tied with last season. The week after will see them host Prairie Grove, a team Pea Ridge hasn’t beaten on the junior high level in a very long time.

There will be a game story next week about the Gentry contest in the newspaper as yours truly plans to make the trek. While I did manage to cover the opening game against Elkins, I have had a variety of family emergencies that prevented my leaving home in the four games since.

For that reason, I would like to encourage someone to perhaps volunteer to learn the art of sports reporting. There will be times, especially while I move through my 60s, when I won’t be able to cover a sporting event that needs and deserves to be written about. As Pea Ridge schools grow bigger, there are moreand more things going on that could be written about but simply aren’t for lack of reporting manpower.

Sportswriting understudies would get a cool place to watch the game, plus learning something that might lead to a full or part-time job in the future. I started writing sports as a high school student when I was encouraged to by a teacher.

I was employed by my college to write sports for them the years I attended Harding University and that really helped pay for my schooling. I have been paid o◊and on to write for some bigger papers and had a chance to go into sports writing full time.

Working for The TIMES isn’t a paying gig, but it is rewarding nonetheless.

Not many small towns have newspapers anymore, and even less of them have sports sections with in depth sports stories. The space is available but there is a need for more writers.

If interested, contact the newspaper or by emailing me at [email protected] or at prtnews@ nwaonline.com.

Bentonville to be much better in basketball in 2013-14

Bentonville is boundto be much improved in basketball this season, a team that occasionally has played Pea Ridge.

While the Tigers have been improving a moribund basketball program for the past few years, the team got a big shot of encouragement with the transfer of Malik Monk this year. Monk is the younger brother of Razorback football star Marcus Monk.

The younger Monk has been described by some as one of the top 10 players in his class in the whole United States. He has been called a lock to end his high school career as one of the best fi ve to ever come out of the state.

That’s a lot of hype for a sophomore, but it does mean that he must be pretty good.

The good thing is that he is much like his brother, meaning he is hard working, extremely coachable and comes from a good family. Too bad his family couldn’t have found a home just a little northeast of Bentonville, say, in the Pea Ridge vicinity.

Two teams left undefeated in 4A-1

Gravette and Farmington fell from the ranks of district undefeated, leaving only Lincoln and Prairie Grove with perfect 2-0 records. As luck would have it, those two teams will battle it out this Friday at Prairie Grove with the winner in control of the No. 1 playo◊seed in the district.

The Tigers will be decided favorites against Lincoln, but the Wolves do have the personnel to pull o◊an upset. The upset, though, is still rather unlikely. Prairie Grove has a 7-1 record advantage over Lincoln since 2000.

In other games:

While Farmington has an 8-2 record against Berryville over the past 10 years, this year the Bobcats are much improved while the Cardinals aren’t nearly as good as their pre-season prediction. Playing at Berryville might give the Cats enough edge to eat the Birds. Farmington got clobbered 49-13 last week at Prairie Grove while the Bobcats were beaten at Ozark.

The game at Gravette will see the Ozark Hillbillies come to town for the last time. Ozark was real listless through their fi rst four games before coming around just in time to beat Berryville 28-13 last week while the Lions su◊ered at loss at Gentry, 21-19. Ozark is really young but they have some swagger from last year. Gravette has a 2-1 edge in their previous meetings.

Pea Ridge will host Gentry in its annual homecoming game and it promises to be a battle. Pea Ridge has a current 5-4 record against the Pioneers since2000, and shut them out 25-0 last year at Gentry.

This Pioneer team is the best they have had in years as their track program has added much needed speed to their squad, making them tough to contain.

Consecutive losses will motivate the ’Hawks to right their ship and get back on the winning track and this well might be the time and place to do it

Sports, Pages 10 on 10/09/2013