Bauxite 35, Benton Harmony Grove 18
Bauxite quarterback Seth McDowell (right) stiff arms Benton Harmony Grove cornerback Connor Burrow during Friday night’s game at Haskell.
BAUXITE 35, BENTON HARMONY GROVE 18
HASKELL — Bauxite has been on the wrong side of the scoreboard for the past two years against Benton Harmony Grove, but the Miners’ ground game ensured they’d finish on the right side Friday night.
Senior quarterback Seth McDowell ran the ball 31 times for 161 yards and scored 3 touchdowns as Bauxite pulled away for a 35-18 victory over its cross-county rival to remain undefeated in front of an overflow crowd at Sykes Stadium.
Senior running back Dawson Dabbs added 140 yards on 19 carries for the Miners, who ran behind their massive offensive line to rack up 350 yards rushing and snatch the Saline River Showdown trophy away from the Cardinals. Bauxite (6-0, 3-0 7-4A) had lost the previous two meetings with Harmony Grove by a combined 39 points.
“I think we wore them down,” Bauxite Coach Daryl Patton said. “Our offensive line really controlled the line of scrimmage with our size advantage. We were very physical, but I really thought all of our backs ran hard behind them.
“If we don’t turn it over, we make it easy on ourselves. But we continued to stick with it and pulled it out.”
Bauxite’s victory not only snapped its two-game losing streak to Harmony Grove, but it also ensured the Miners of having a winning season in Class 4A for the first time since they made the jump from Class 3A in 2010.
Senior quarterback Logan Whitley scored two touchdowns and passed for another to lead Harmony Grove (42, 2-1), which kept the game close but ultimately wore down in the second half. Junior running back Willie Newton carried six times for 75 yards, including a 59-yard burst in the first quarter that allowed the Cardinals to grab an early lead.
“They just overpowered us at times,” Harmony Grove Coach Mike Guthrie said of Bauxite. “I give my kids all the credit in the world because they kept coming, kept playing, but we just made too many mistakes and had too many penalties. We got behind and couldn’t catch up.”
The two teams exchanged fumbles on their opening possessions before Whitley’s 1-yard run with 2:03 left in the first quarter gave Harmony Grove a 6-0 lead. Bauxite, though, would score 21 unanswered points to take over.
Behind a starting offensive line that averages nearly 270 pounds per player, the Miners scored touchdowns on three of their next four series. Dabbs’ 12-yarder with 1:12 remaining in the first got the Miners on the board, and McDowell’s 3-yard score with 3:23 to go in the second quarter helped Bauxite take a 14-6 cushion into halftime. His 1-yard dive at the 8:44 mark of the third quarter extended the Miners’ margin to 21-6.
Harmony Grove trimmed its deficit to 21-12 on Whitley’s 6-yard touchdown run with 9:19 left in the game, but the Miners ate up nearly six minutes on their following possession, with McDowell polishing off the drive with a 1-yard scoring run, to essentially put the game away.
Whitley’s 27-yard touchdown pass to junior wide receiver Hayden Hilson did pull the Cardinals within 28-18 with less than three minutes to play, but Bauxite senior offensive lineman Jackson Shelton recovered a fumble in the end zone with 43 seconds showing to set the final score.
“Give Harmony Grove credit, they’ve got a really good team,” Patton said. “They’re a really tough group, but any time you can go on the road in the conference and win is huge. To win by over 13 could come into play later on down the road.
“But this was a trophy game, and we’re taking it back to Bauxite.”