Elkins rips Ashdown behind Chairs

CLASS 4A

ELKINS 63, ASHDOWN 27

ELKINS — Elkins looked like a well-rested football team on Friday night in a Class 4A second-round playoff game.

Behind a 305-yard, six-touchdown performance from junior running back Da’Shawn Chairs, the Elks (101) are in the state quarterfinals following a 63-27 victory over Ashdown.

The Panthers, who knocked out Lonoke 21-14 last week, ended their season at 7-4.

Elkins will turn its attention to Nashville, which dispatched 3-4A champion Pocahontas, 37-7, on Friday.

Ashdown tight end and University of Arkansas commit Shamar Easter caught the game’s first touchdown, a 42yard offering from Grayson Porter, to go up 6-0.

Elkins answered with a 11yard scoring jaunt from quarterback Dizzy Dean to knot the game at 6-6.

The Panthers retook the lead when Jonathan McElroy scooped up a Dean fumble and ran it in from 30 yards out to go up 14-6, but Chairs scored four plays later and the Elks converted the two-point conversion to tie it at 14-14.

Elkins only needed three plays to take its first lead, when Dean found the end zone on a 13-yard run. Easter caught a 30-yard pass from Porter to tie it at 21-21 near halftime, but a long kickoff return from Chairs set Elkins up on the Ashdown 29 with 30 seconds remaining before intermission and Dean found Aden Williams for a 27-21 advantage.

In the second half, it was all Chairs. He scored on runs of 9, 64, 32 and 16 yards to turn a 6-point lead into a 28-point rout. His final scoring run was after a fourth-down stand near the goal line, and he raced 97 yards down the home sideline for the score.

Ashdown scored the final points of the contest when Kaiden Winfrey hauled in a 43-yard heave from McElroy as time was running out to set the final margin.