Final week before conference play begins
The Blackhawk varsity football team will finally be playing at home after competing on the road for the first month of the season.
The locals went to Siloam Springs for the preseason benefit game then traveled to Harrison and then to Maumelle for nonconference action before having last week off. They will open their home stand for 2018 by hosting the Farmington Cardinals.
The grid-iron ’Hawks are working on a four-game winning streak over the 5A Cardinals, using a stout defense to put together the current win record. Pea Ridge has lost the previous 11 straight matches before whipping the Cards by successive scores of 36-0, 26-7, 13-7, and then 24-7 last season.
The Blackhawks admittedly did not play well against Harrison, and came out flat against Maumelle two weeks ago. However, the ’Hawks played extremely well in the second half against Maumelle and finally seemed to find their rhythm.
Farmington defeated Prairie Grove 33-30 in the season’s opening game, then they crushed Gravette 40-2 last week.
Two seniors lead the Cardinal offense with similar numbers through two games. Running back Reid Turner (5’10”, 180 lbs.) is averaging 80 yards a game with quarterback Eric Hill (5’11”, 170 lbs.) racking up 76 yards per game through the air. Another weapon is kick returner Drew Sturgeon who has returned five kickoffs for an average of 32 yards per attempt.
A pair of seniors lead the offense with Dimarie Donovan (5’5”, 135 lbs.) averaging 10 tackles a game from his safety position with linebacker Curt Kilgore averaging a little over 10 tackles himself.
In the beat down of Gravette last week, several Lion turnovers aided the Cards in their easy win. I watched some of the game video and the speed advantage of Farmington over Gravette is obvious.
If the ’Hawks can keep their momentum going from the second half of the Maumelle game, keeping the turnovers under control, they will have an excellent chance of keeping their win streak over Farmington alive. A large, supportive crowd at the stadium Friday will go a long way towards helping Coach Stephen Neal’s charges obtain their first victory of the 2018 season.
Conference season set to begin
This is the fourth and final week of the pre-conference schedule, and this is the non-conference records of the eight 4A-1 teams to date:
4A-1 District
Lincoln 2-0 Shiloh 1-1 Berryville 1-1 Pea Ridge 0-2 Prairie Grove 0-2 Gravette 0-2 Gentry 0-2 Green Forest 0-2 The conference mark is 4-12 overall, but that mark could be a little bit misleading. More than half of the 12 losses were administered by larger classification schools. On the other hand, the four wins logged by conference members were against teams ranked in the bottom of their state classifications, so there is that.
The school with the best record is Lincoln, who crunched Oklahoma teams Westville and Keys by 48-6 and 40-7 counts. Those two schools are ranked at the bottom of the 2A classification in Oklahoma. The Wolves finish their pre-conference schedule by taking on the next to the worst team in the state in 47th Subiaco, so it is likely they will enter the district games undefeated.
Berryville won their game against 3A class 39thranked West Fork then lost 21-14 to Huntsville. The