Gravette Lions fall to Cascia Hall Commandos

GRAVETTE — Cascia Hall coach Joe Median knew he had a special group of skill players coming into the season, and they did not disappoint in the Commandos’ first game.

The team scored on its first six possessions in Cascia Hall’s 44-7 win over the Gravette Lions on Friday night. The Commandos’ receivers powered the team’s offense, keeping drives alive by hauling in deep passes on late- down situations from quarterback Jaxon Henderson.

“We think we have much skill at the wideouts that we’ve had in a long time, and we liked our matchups against Gravette so we tried to exploit that at the beginning,” Medina said.

The Commandos found themselves with a commanding lead over Gravette in the first quarter, scoring fast and scoring frequently, but penalties plagued them the rest of the game.

A few times during the game, Cascia Hall would find itself 30 or 40 yards behind the line- of- scrimmage, but Henderson would find one of his wideouts for a first down consistently throughout the night.

Receiver Zach Uhren caught two touchdown passes from Henderson to lead the receiving corps, and Blake Hensley provided another score off a 40-yard run early in the first quarter.

Gravette’s lone touchdown of the night came at the hands of Lions quarterback Tajae White who broke a 70- yard run off a draw play in the first quarter.

First- year coach Doug Greenwood thought his team could have been more mentally prepared headed into the matchup.

“We were playing an opponent that we knew they were going to hit us in the mouth. I think we weren’t ready for that,” Greenwood said. “We couldn’t seem to offensively or defensively get things going.”

Outside of that one score, the Lions struggled to generate much momentum on offense and rarely passed the midfield mark during the game. The Commandos’ secondary smothered Gravette’s receivers, making it difficult for White to find easy targets.

“We played hard. We played physical,” Medina said.

“In Oklahoma, we’re known as the Blue Swarm defense, and we swarmed around to the ball, and other than the one breakdown, we played overall really well on the defensive side.”

Gravette will travel to

Farmington to play the Cardinals at 7 p. m. on Sept. 7. The matchup will be the first in a three- game road stint for the Lions.