All eyes remain on Greenwood
Owen Miller wasn’t going to forget about the state championship game — or any game from last year, for that matter. The Lake Hamilton running back said he’s watched each of the Wolves’ 13 contests at least 10 times this offseason.
It was a season Coach Tommy Gilleran wanted to hold onto. Reaching the final game of the 2020 campaign was a massive accomplishment for the Lake Hamilton alum after failing to get past the quarterfinals in any of his first four years back home.
But like it was for so many of his players, the Wolves’ 4924 defeat to Greenwood was unsatisfying.
They know what they’re capable of accomplishing. They also know the Bulldogs remain the measuring stick in Class 6A.
“Until you start beating them, you have to design stuff to take them down, to be the champion,” Gilleran said. “We’ve geared a lot of stuff that we do to have a chance at beating them. If you want to win it, you have to go through Greenwood right now.”
The Bulldogs, coming off their 10th state title in program history and their third in the past four seasons, enter another fall as the favorite in their classification. Coach Chris Young replaced Rick Jones after serving 19 years as a Greenwood assistant prior to the 2020 season, but the Bulldogs will have much more to replace this season.
Quarterback L.D. Richmond and running back Hunter Wilkinson graduated along with several other key pieces from a dominant offense that put up better than 43 points per game.
That’s far from the case at Lake Hamilton. Miller and classmate Tevin Hughes — who combined for more than 3,600 yards on the ground as juniors — will comprise twothirds of the Wolves’ backfield in Gilleran’s Wing-T offense. They’ll be joined by junior Kendrick Martin.
And it’s a senior class that goes way beyond the backfield. Quarterback Grant Bearden, tight end/defensive end Zach Roberts, offensive lineman Chase Jessup, cornerback Ethan Robbins and wide receiver Colin Ashcraft were all part of a group that has played together since peewee ball.
As much as it’s a mission for Gilleran and Lake Hamilton, finishing the season with a championship is something the Wolves’ 2022 class has wanted to do ever since they started high school — if not before.
“It would be big. Everybody wants it,” Hughes said. “We want to at least get a ring before we leave.”
Gilleran said he believes this is his best group yet, but the Wolves won’t have to think about Greenwood until the teams met in the regular-season finale Nov. 5.
By no means does it mean the road up to that point will be easy. Lake Hamilton will once again be part of a tough 6A-West that features the Bulldogs, preseason No. 3 Little Rock Parkview and No. 5 Benton.
The Patriots may be the most talented team in the conference. Three-star University of Arkansas commitment James Jointer will lead Parkview’s offense from the tailback spot, and he’ll have Memphis commitment Kyndall McKenzie in front of him on the offensive line.
Then there’s three-star safety Trent Bennett as the centerpiece of a defensive unit that limited opponents to 11 points per game in 2020.
The question for Coach Brad Bolding is consistency. In the Patriots’ quarterfinal playoff game last year, they held Sylvan Hills to just seven points. Yet Parkview couldn’t manage to get on the scoreboard.
Bolding said he knows that not only does his team need to be peaking come December, but the Patriots have to raise their bar when they get their first shot at Greenwood on Sept. 23 in Little Rock.
“They’re a traditionally rich program. They start their kids young and they run that system for so long,” Bolding said of the Bulldogs, with whom he once was an assistant. “When you’re playing a team like that, you really have to cut down on your mistakes … and that goes for all the teams in our conference.”
Young knows that many opponents have their matchup with Greenwood circled. It’s been that way ever since he started with the program — all 10 of their titles have come since 2000.
There’s pressure that comes with that. In every season but one dating back to 2008, the Bulldogs have won double-digit games.
That type of consistency — the same thing that Bolding is seeking and Gilleran is building — has allowed the Bulldogs to thrive because of those expectations.
“Our kids like that pressure,” Young said, “because they know that if we don’t come out and play well — we’re always going to get our opponent’s best game — it’s going to be hard to win.”
Whether it’s against El Dorado out of the East with one of its best teams in recent memory or a Lake Hamilton side Greenwood knows all too well, the Bulldogs will have a target on their backs all season long.
The gap between Greenwood and the field, until evidence suggests otherwise, remains wide. The Bulldogs bring back several key defensive players, including safety Colin Daggett. No team came particularly close to taking them down aside from an early season nonconference matchup with Class 7A Bentonville West.
Gilleran said he believes his group can narrow things a bit further. Jessup leads an offensive line that is much improved, and with more than two full months of a season before their first matchup with the defending champs, the Wolves believe they’ll be ready to get over that hump.
“Who’s going to be our biggest enemy is ourselves,” Miller said. “[At Alabama], every practice is just the most explosive and fastest they’ve ever been to — they train hard from the start to the finish. We can give ourselves the best looks, and you’re not going to find anybody better.”