‘Hawks to take the field Friday in tri-school scrimmage
Pea Ridge’s high school football players will have some other heads to knock around this Friday besides each others. The Blackhawks team will be hosting a pair of large area schools in the annual scrimmage benefit game here this Friday night at 6 p.m.
The 7A Rogers Mountaineers will invade the Ridge along with the 6A Siloam Springs Panthers with both schools making their debut appearance in Blackhawk Stadium. The last Friday before the 2019 season begins in earnest on Aug. 30, the three schools will play a half against each other in the semi-formal competition.
Being one of the largest schools in the largest conferences in the state, the Mountaineers currently have 145 players on their roster. Siloam Springs could bring nearly a 100 boys in uniform for Friday night with the ’Hawks having well over 100 players on their team at last report.
Both visitors made it to the playoffs in their respective districts last year but were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs.
Rogers is currently ranked as the 43rd best team in all of Arkansas. That is just ahead of Pea Ridge’s 68th overall ranking and Siloam Springs’ 71st ranking slot.
The Mountaineers return their veteran quarterback Hunter Lloyd as well as their best rusher in 2018 in Sammy Zammoron. Rogers finished 2-9 last year with Siloam Springs carving out a 5-6 mark.
Veteran head coach Stephen Neal has a 32-8 overall won-loss record as the Blackhawks skipper with hopes of improving last year’s 7-4 record.
Half of 4A-1 District football teams idle on first week
Only half of the teams in the 4A-District will be playing their opening game next week.
With the extra week added to the schedule last year, every team will have a bye week amongst their four weeks on competition.
State-ranked No. 2 Shiloh will travel to Moore Harbor in Florida next week to take on the Moore Haven. Moore Haven is ranked ninth in the small Florida 2A classification, with eight of the 10 top ranked teams being from the Christian academy ranks.
In other games, 13thranked Dardanelle visits 34th-ranked Gentry, 47th-ranked Gravette will visit the Oklahoma’s 3A 18th-ranked Casia Hall team, with the 5A’s secondranked Harrison taking on 16th-ranked Pea Ridge.
On Sept. 6, six of the conference’s teams will be in action with 35th-ranked Prairie Grove invading 5A 25th-ranked Farmington. The 31st-ranked Lincoln team will visit the 58thranked 2A Oklahoma team Westville while 3A 40thranked West Fork will be going to 38th- ranked Berryville and 32nd- (and last) ranked 5A Huntsville will play Gentry. The 48th- (and last) ranked Green Forest will match up with 38thranked 2A Yellville, with 19th-ranked 5A Maumelle coming to Pea Ridge for the first time.
On Sept. 13, Pea Ridge will be idle, but Farmington
visits Gravette, Berryville goes to Huntsville, Prairie Grove invades Dardanelle, No. 6-ranked 2A Smackover plays at Shiloh, Oklahoma 2A 20th-ranked Commerce goes to Green Forest with Oklahoma 38th-ranked Keys rounds out the schedule by going to Lincoln.
The non-conference schedule will wrap up Sept. 20 with Pea Ridge going for its fourth-straight win over Farmington, Shiloh headed over to 2A 32nd-ranked Beggs, Gentry at 3A 22ndranked Greenland, Oklahoma 3A 22nd-ranked Jay at Gravette, Berryville at Yellville, 46th-ranked Subiaco, Green Forest at West Fork, and 27th-ranked Pottsville at Prairie Grove.
I discovered the records of all the school currently in the 4A-1 of the games they played with each other. These include games they may have played as members of other districts in times past.
All-time 4A-1 records
1. Shiloh 69-18 .784
2. Prairie Grove 78-22 .780
3. Gravette 57-38 .600
4. Pea Ridge 52-45 .536
5. Green Forest 27-40 .403
6. Gentry 31-70 .307
7. Berryville 34-77 .306
8. Lincoln 23-61 .274
Other schools benefit football week
This week the other schools in the 4A-1 will also play in benefit games with the exception of Gravette High School. The Lions decided not to participate this year.
Tuesday night, Shiloh was to host Springdale in a scrimmage, so you can bet they will have their scouts at other games in the conference. Meaning of course, there won’t only be Rogers, Siloam Springs and Pea Ridge fans in the bleachers Friday night.
Friday, Prairie Grove will hook it up with 5A Clarksville, Gentry will host Ozark, Green Forest will be visited by Huntsville, and next Monday, Berryville will be the host school for Elkins.
Of course, the scrimmage will be prepping the teams for non-conference play which in turn prepares teams for competition within their own conferences. The conference play in the 4A-1 will determine which five teams go on to have extended play in the playoffs, and which three teams will pack it in for the year.
In 2020, the playoff situation for the Blackhawks will be shifting as they move into the bigger schools but smaller populated 5A classification. The 5A class has the least number of qualifiers at just four. There are four leagues in 5A, which means they only have a four week playoff schedule.
The 7A and 6A schools take six of their eight conference members into the playoffs. Both those classes have but 16 members in each, so if the AAA looks to maximize profits, they need to include more schools to make the playoffs last four weeks like the 5A.
Most states have rather uniform mechanics to determine playoff participants, but the Arkansas folks have different sets of guidelines/rules.
The football playoffs provide the biggest source of income for the overall association. When the AAA decided to drop a classification from all the other sporting programs from seven to six classes, they left football alone. Which is why the ’Hawks will be a two-class school beginning the next school year.
Pea Ridge will be 5A in football but 4A in every thing else, at least for a time. With the rate of growth the school has been sustaining, they may join Siloam Springs someday in the 6A.
When my wife attended Bentonville High School in the 1960s, the school was the size of Harrison and smaller than what Pea Ridge is today.
Who knows — Pea Ridge in the 7A someday? With a rather large land mass with plenty of optimal building sites, it could happen. I would rather it didn’t.
Editor’s note: John McGee, an award-winning columnist, sports writer and art teacher at Pea Ridge elementary schools, writes a regular sports column for The Times. The opinions expressed are those of the writer. He can be contacted through The Times at prtnews@nwadg.com.