Cobras face run-heavy, resurgent Miners
FOUNTAIN LAKE — Fountain Lake, hoping to rebound from last week’s 70-7 rout at Arkadelphia, tonight plays a team enjoying a comeback season.
Bauxite, 4-2 after going 0-10 last year, comes to Beckham Memorial Field looking for its third 4A-7 win, having defeated Malvern and Mena.
“Coach (Daryl) Patton has done a really good job,” said Fountain Lake head coach J.D. Plumlee. “He’s got the kids back out, they’re playing and they’re bought in. Winning cures a lot of issues that take place. They’ve won some games early. They’re playing with a lot of confidence, and right now, they’ve had a lot of things go their way throughout the season. He’s got his kids believing they’re supposed to win, and our kids believe we’re supposed to win this game. I expect this to come down to the fourth quarter and a play here or there will determine the outcome of the game.”
A week ago, Arkadelphia led 36-7 after the first quarter, avenging a road loss to the Cobras last year. Fountain Lake dropped to 2-4 overall, 0-3 in the conference.
We didn’t help ourselves in the first quarter,” Plumlee said. “We drove the field and stalled out down on about the 15. We went for it on fourth down and didn’t get it. If we punched in right there, it evens the score up. They kept marching down the field, and we didn’t do a good job of tackling their quarterback or running back early. They’re explosive. They’re really physical up front, and we’ve got to do a better job of matching the physical play up front.”
Parion Johnson had five catches for 103 of Fountain Lake’s 231 total yards.
“We did some things early,” Plumlee said. “We were driving the ball early. I thought our offensive line was executing early. Then our depth kind of got to us a little bit. We got worn out. We took the positives out of the loss. We’re not sitting here hanging our heads over the negatives of that loss. We came back to work and really focused on the positives out of that game and started working toward Bauxite Monday.”
The Cobras face another run-heavy offense this week with Bauxite (4-2, 2-1) running a Dead-T.
“It’s a run-heavy offense that likes to run downhill,” Plumlee said. “The three backs in the backfield (Hayden Edwards, Jonah Sorvillo and Dawson Dabbs) … can carry the ball and have for them. Their quarterback (Seth McDowell) is pretty good with it in his hands as well.”
Plumlee has a concise game plan for the Miners.
“You have to stop the run against them, obviously,” he said. “You want to get them in to where they want to throw it or they need to throw it and force them into doing something they’re not comfortable doing.
“On offense, we’ve got to establish a run game and try to move the chains on the ground some this week and not rely solely on the air. It’s kind of been our focus.”