Catholic continues early run

Little Rock Catholic is off to its best start of the 21st century following a 42-21 road win over Searcy Friday night.

The Rockets (4-0, 3-0 6A-East), just like they have all year, leaned on their rushing attack to take down the Lions (1-3, 1-2).

Senior quarterback Sam Sanders rushed for his sixth touchdown of the season to open the scoring from 13 yards out.

Junior running back Cooper Nannen helped extend Catholic’s lead in the second quarter with an 8-yard receiving touchdown and a 7-yard rushing touchdown.

The Rockets added three more touchdowns in the second half thanks to Sanders’ seventh rushing score, a 36-yard pass to Brooks Ward and a 5-yard rush by Dominic Keeton.

Sanders completed 13 of 19 passes for 225 yards and rushed 10 times for 58 yards totaling 4 scores.

He didn’t score, but senior wide receiver Sam Bowman led the Rockets with 121 receiving yards on five catches.

Catholic will host West Memphis on Friday night at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock.

Title challengers

Through four games, Conway (4-0, 1-0 7A-Central) has shown the makings of a team capable of challenging Bryant for the conference crown and also the Class 7A title.

The No. 2 Wampus Cats traveled to Little Rock Southwest (1-3, 0-1) and came away with a 40-0 win Friday night.

Conway’s offense has been the story this season, averaging 50 points per game.

That didn’t change much against Southwest. Junior quarterback Donovyn Omolo completed 16 of 18 passes for 213 yards and 2 touchdowns and rushed for a third.

Senior running back Jamarion “Boogie” Carr, a Ouachita Baptist commit, rushed six times for 45 yards and a touchdown. Junior receiver Cris O’Niel caught five passes for 106 yards and a touchdown.

Conway got all of its scoring done before halftime. Backup running backs La La Smith and Desmond Davidson found the end zone for touchdowns, and senior wide receiver Rome Fields scored on one of his four catches.

Buzzer beaters

Arguably the play of the week and maybe the season thus far happened to end the Batesville- Nettleton game Friday.

Tied 28-28 with nine seconds left, Nettleton (31, 0-1 5A-East) set up for a game-winning field goal deep in Batesville (3-1, 1-0) territory.

Instead of seeing the attempt go through the uprights and starting conference play with a win, Nettleton’s kick was blocked by a wall of Batesville defenders. Jaiden Henderson picked the ball up for the Pioneers and ran the length of the field to score and secure a 34-28 win for his team.

It wasn’t the first time Batesville pulled off a late win this season. In fact, it’s the third one-score win for the Pioneers.

All three of Batesville’s victories, 40-39 over Searcy, 25-24 over Harrison and 3428 over Nettleton, have come by less than seven points.

Whiplash football

Watching Booneville and Hackett play Friday night should have come with a health safety warning.

The Bearcats (3-1, 1-0 3A-1) and Hornets (1-3, 0-1) combined to score 121 points at Hackett. Booneville came away with a 75-46 win thanks to a five-touchdown performance by Trace Hall.

Hall scored in all four quarters, racking up 136 yards rushing on touchdown plays alone. Dax Goff matched Hall’s five touchdowns, running for four and throwing one to Dakota Mattson in the second quarter.

The halftime score was 47-18 in favor of Booneville, but a three-touchdown third quarter by Hackett quarterback Cole Ketchum brought it to 61-38.

Ketchum totaled seven touchdowns for the losing side, five passing and two rushing.

Picture near-perfect

The state record for completion percentage over a season was 75.5% set by Greenwood’s Hayden Smith in 2011.

Through four games this year, his record is in serious trouble of being broken.

Harding Academy sophomore quarterback Owen Miller completed

18 of 21 for 271 yards and 4 touchdowns in a 45-13 win over Stuttgart.

Miller has been surgical with his precision this season, and Friday’s performance puts him completing 93 of 112 passes for a 83% completion percentage with six games left.

Miller has passed for 1,288 yards and 16 touchdowns in 4 games. He’ll look to continue his performance next week at Lonoke.

On the board

Des Arc won its first game of the season Friday night at Earle with a 28-24 victory.

The Eagles (1-2, 1-0 2A-2) were a preseason favorite in Class 2A but have come out of the gates slow. They were shutout in their first two games in losses to Hazen and Carlisle.

Des Arc will look to make it two in a row this week at Marianna.