Wildcats take big step
Panthers fall to 1-7 with two games left
The long trip to Siloam Springs wasn’t an easy one, but it turned out to be a good one for El Dorado.
The Wildcats took a big step toward qualifying for the Class 6A playoffs with a 49-23 mercy rule win over Siloam Springs at Panther Stadium.
“It was worth it though because we’ve been up and down,” said El Dorado coach Scott Reed. “We’ve not been real solid. We had some good things happen tonight. Our kids played hard.”
With the win, El Dorado (4-4, 2-3) now has a one game lead for fifth place on both Siloam Springs (1-7, 1-4), Texarkana (2-5, 1-4) and two games on Sheridan (1-7, 0-5) going into the final two games of the regular season.
Siloam Springs makes the long trek to southwest Arkansas to play at Texarkana this Friday with the winner likely in the driver’s seat for the sixth and final playoff spot.
“Our kids, we had a good week of practice this past week,” said Panthers head coach Bryan Ross. “I imagine we’ll come back and have a good week of practice next week. Kids are resilient. I told them at halftime we’ve just got to play better. … If you’re really talented you can overcome a lot of mistakes. We realize we have to play really clean football. We just haven’t been able to do that enough.”
The Panthers seemed to be off to a good start in Friday night’s game against the Wildcats.
Siloam Springs got the ball to start the game and went threeand-out on its first possession. But the Panthers forced El Dorado to a three-and-out defensively and got the ball back near midfield after a Wildcats punt.
On first down, Luke Lampton hit senior J.D. Horn, and Horn nearly broke it for a score but was barely tripped up for a 22-yard gain down to the 25.
On the next play, however, Lampton was picked off by El Dorado’s Bishop Foster. That interception sparked the Wildcats to a 60-yard scoring drive to take a 7-0 lead in the first quarter after Richard Kesee scored from six yards out for the first of his four rushing touchdowns on the night with 4:08 left in the first quarter.
Because of several penalties on the drive, the Wildcats ended up rushing for 78 yards on the drive in total — a preview of things to come as El Dorado would finish with 338 rushing yards on 49 carries. The Wildcats also had 115 yards through the air and finished with 453 yards of offense.
Siloam Springs began moving the ball again after El Dorado’s first score. Lampton hit sophomore Kaiden Thrailkill for a 21-yard screen pass and a sevenyard run by Thrailkill moved the ball to midfield. The Panthers picked up 10 more yards on a pass to Carlos Gonzales but the drive stalled and the Panthers came up a yard short on a fake punt run from Thrailkill on fourth down.
The two teams traded possessions and the Wildcats got the ball back in the second quarter and began moving the ball again. El Dorado quarterback Brennan Claypoole hit passes of 11, 22 and 15 yards on the drive and Kesee scored again from three yards out to give the Wildcats a 14-0 lead with 7:17 left in the half.
The Wildcats were on the scoreboard less than four minutes later when linebacker Johnathan Hall took the ball away from Lampton on a quarterback run and ran 30 yards for a 21-0 lead.
Siloam Springs got on the scoreboard when Lampton hit a 64-yard pass to Horn to bring the Panthers within 21-6 with 2:28 left in the half.
The Panthers then got the ball back with great field position after Horn returned a 35-yard punt back to the Wildcats’ 26-yard line with plenty of time to go. Unfortunately for Siloam Springs, the Panthers turned the ball over on downs and didn’t cash in on the opportunity.
“When they made a mistake, we weren’t able to take advantage of it enough,” Ross said. “That kind of sums it up.”
El Dorado, meanwhile, did capitalize, scoring a fourth touchdown with 23 seconds left in the first half on a 62-yard reverse run by Shun Levingston, highlighted by several missed
tackles by Siloam Springs. The Wildcats led 28-6 at halftime.
Kesee scored his third touchdown of the game to make it 35-6 in the second half, and Jarius Curry’s 11yard run gave the Wildcats a 42-6 lead and started the mercy rule running clock.
Siloam Springs would make it 42-8 after the Panthers recorded a safety on defense when El Dorado muffed a punt in the endzone. The Panthers made it 42-16 after James Boyd recovered a fumble in the endzone for a touchdown and Lampton threw a twopoint conversion pass to Montana Burke.
Kesee hit paydirt for the fourth time in the fourth quarter for a 49-16 lead, and Siloam Springs scored its final touchdown on a one-yard run by Dalton Ferguson. The play was set up by a 22-yard pass to Gonzales and a 37-yard pass to Horn.
Curry wound up leading the Wildcats with 117 rushing yards on 10 carries, while Richard Kesee had 110 yards on 12 carries and four touchdowns.
The Wildcats did suffer a blow when senior running back Anthony Thomas went down with what appeared to be a broken leg in the third quarter.
“It looks like it’s a broken leg,” Reed said. “All he asked is if I thought he’d be back and ready for next week. Bless his heart. Our kids it just deflated us. The whole group was in tears.”
Siloam Springs finished with 255 yards of offense. Lampton completed 12 of 29 passes for 207 yards. Horn caught eight passes for 149 yards. The Panthers were limited to 48 rushing yards on 17 carries.
“We can’t afford to make any mistakes,” Ross said. “We bust a couple of routes and turn the ball over a couple of times, missed tackles. You can’t do that. But you have to give them credit too. Coach Reed’s had a lot of success down there, and even though they’re maybe down by their standards he still has some good football players.
“They made it hard on us. They loaded the box and played man coverage. We had trouble staying on blocks and getting away from coverage. That makes it hard. … I’m proud of the kids for continuing to play hard. They could have packed it in, but they didn’t. You just have to play cleaner and limit those mistakes.”