Streak Snapped
Panthers upend No. 1 Bulldogs at home
BENTON 45, GREENWOOD 38
BENTON — The Greenwood Bulldogs brought their 19-game win streak to Benton on Friday night and left town with their first loss since falling to Fort Smith Northside in last year’s seasonopener. Benton senior cornerback Cade Clark picked off Greenwood senior Jace Presley’s pass at the Greenwood goal line to preserve Benton’s 45-38 victory at Panther Stadium.
The Panthers (5-3, 5-0 West) avenged last season’s 45-14 6A title game loss as Benton also snapped a five-game skid since Greenwood (7-1, 4-1) beat them in the state semis in 2015 for the teams’ first matchup. It was also Benton’s fifth straight win since starting the season 0-3.
“We finally took it to Greenwood for four quarters,” Benton Coach Brad Harris said. “We talked to the guys all week about being relentless. That’s how those guys play. I knew they were going to make a run at us and our guys were able to fight back and continue playing.
“We had some big plays throughout the game, but at the end we had some step up and make plays, offensively, defensively. We came back. We tell them all the time, it’s not how you start, it’s how you
finish. We made some mistakes, but we’ve come back. They were on a 19-game run before (Friday) night. Two of those wins last year were against us.”
Falling to Greenwood
62-33 on the road last year, the Panthers wanted it more Friday in Benton.
Tied 17-17 at the half when senior kicker Bryan Araujo nailed a 36-yard field goal when time expired, the Panthers opened the second half with a 17-play, 77-drive capped by junior Garrett Brown’s 20-yard touchdown pass to senior Gavin Wells to put the Panthers up 24-17 with 5:02 left in the third quarter. The drive consumed 6:52 off the third quarter clock.
“The third quarter was huge for us,” Harris said. “We come out and score and take seven minutes of the clock. That was big for us, big momentum swing. I know they came back, but our defense got to rest and they had energy at the end of the ballgame.”
Greenwood responded with an 8-play, 72-yard drive capped by Presley’s 4-yard jet sweep TD to Caden Brown for the 24-24 game.
But, it didn’t take Benton long to respond as right after Brown hit senior Braxton Slaughter for a 45-yard gain on a beautiful catch, senior D’anthony Harper ran it to pay dirt from 16 yards out for one of his four touchdowns on the night.
Harper finished with
122 yards on 31 carries and also caught a pass for 55 yards, breaking tackles while rumbling down to the Bulldogs 6-yard line on the Panthers’ next possession. Harper capped the drive with a 1-yard plunge and 38-24 Benton lead with 10:19 left in the game.
“One of the big things that’s helping us is getting D’anthony healthy,” Harris said. “He got hurt early with some neck issues and then the broken hand. This week he got the cast off of it on Wednesday and felt like a new man. It makes a lot of difference mentally for him and he’s running the football tough for us. He ran like a mad man that one time down the sideline.”
But, the Bulldogs weren’t finished. They capped a 9-play, 58-yard drive in under two minutes when Hunter Wilkinson ran in for a 4-yard TD, and after a Panther punt, Presley hit senior receiver Lazaro Angel for a 20-yard TD to tie things up at 38-apiece with 4:18 left to go.
The Panthers didn’t get down on themselves as a huge Brown to senior receiver Peyton Hudgins 54-yard gain put the Panthers at the Greenwood 8, and Harper eventually ran it in from a yard out to set the final score.
With two minutes to go, Greenwood put together a good drive, getting down to the Benton 11, but Clark came up big with the pick to ice it.
“We don’t do anything easy,” Harris said. “We had that 14-point lead, but closing it out was big for us momentum-wise. We went through a spell when they hit us for two touchdowns
and tied it back. We were a little down. But we come back and answered offensively, which was huge for our momentum.
“They start driving on us. Last week against El Dorado, Cade Clark got beat a couple times, but then he came back with a big pick for us. He did the same thing (Friday). We got beat a couple times in the secondary, but those guys are very resilient, bounced back for us all night and made some plays when it counted.”
After a slow start in the first half, Brown finished 16 of 25 for 277 yards and a TD vs. a first-half pick. Brown was 8 of 10 for 209 yards and a TD in the second half.
Sophomore running back Casey Johnson finished with 79 yards on six carries, including a 48-yard touchdown run in the first half to tie Greenwood at 14-14.
“Casey Johnson is a great complement to (Harper), Harris said. “He’s like a speed bullet coming out there and you saw that on the draw play in the second quarter. We knew we had to run the football against these guys. We didn’t want to get in the throwing match with them because they can sling the rock around really well.”
Wells was good in his return after a three-game absence catching seven for 74 yards and a TD. Slaughter had four receptions for 73 yards and Hudgins three for 68, including his key 54-yarder in the second half.
Though it gave up 38 points to the No. 1 6A squad in the state, the Panther defense made the plays it needed to.
“We felt like their offensive line wasn’t quite as good,” Harris said of the Bulldogs. “That might have been a little chink that they had. They’re still good, but they’re not what Greenwood’s been. I felt like between Caleb Coffman, Brett Barbaree, Justin
Walker and Colin Yandell, we felt like we could get some pressure on those guys. It worked out all night for us. Proud of the effort of those guys. They played a ton of snaps.”
The Panthers will look to unseat another undefeated squad next week when they travel to Pearcy to take on the Lake Hamilton Wolves (8-0, 5-0), which eked by Sheridan 17-10 on Friday.
“We’ll take it,” Harris said. “We’re just excited to be
5-0 right now. And to win a ballgame against Greenwood … we’ve played two state championship games and we haven’t beaten somebody like Greenwood since we beat Pine Bluff down at their place in 2014. That propelled us to a conference championship. That’s one of the first things we’re chasing right now and we took a big step toward that. It’s not going to be easy the last two weeks, but we’re getting better I think.”
Harris summed up the huge win.
“We’ve heard all this week, ‘The mighty Greenwood Bulldogs are coming to town,’ he said. “Don’t know if we can survive the storm. We told them all week, we were going to be the storm and they did a great job of fighting for four quarters.”