Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Defensive stop began comeback
GREENWOOD — Senior linebacker Evan Williams and his defensive teammates saw the Bulldog faithful start to leave the stands late in Friday’s home opener when Northside scored with 4:02 left to take its second 18-point lead of the fourth quarter.
“We were just telling everybody to keep their heads up, that we were going to be okay and we were going to bounce back,” Williams said. “We were more mad at ourselves for how we let the crowd down. We saw the fans filtering out of the stands, and that now was our time to bow up and get big.”
Greenwood followed the perfect script for wiping out a huge deficit and staging a thrilling rally with a score, a defensive stop, a score, an on-side kick recovery, and a Hail Mary as time expired to complete a 56-53 win.
After Northside scored, Grant Karnes returned the ensuing kickoff 74 yards to set up the Bulldogs at the Northside 22. Greenwood took 55 seconds to get within 53-42 on freshman quarterback Kane Archer’s 4-yard touchdown pass to Peyton Presson.
Greenwood’s defense still needed a stop, though.
“We were just trying to keep our composure the whole game and stay positive,” senior defensive back Storm Scherrey said. “That last series, we just bowed up and was able to make a stop.”
Up to that point, Greenwood’s defense had given up 573 yards on 60 plays to the Grizzlies but held Northside to three gains of two yards each to force Northside’s second punt of the game with 80 seconds left.
“The energy on the field that drive was a bit different from the rest of the game,” said Williams, who led Greenwood with 14 tackles, including three for loss.
Greenwood took 65 seconds to go 69 yards and narrow the gap to 53-50 with 15 seconds left on a 1-yard touchdown run by Javon Williamson and Archer’s two-point conversion run.
Senior Steven Duran’s on-side kick took the perfect hop, and Williams recovered at the Northside 45 with 14 seconds left.
“When you’re in that position, you run just to hit them and there’s a guy behind you that’s more supposed to get the ball,” Williams said. “I saw the ball hop up in the air and I took the opportunity to jump and kind of made an illegal hit and took him to the ground and got the ball back.”
GREENWOOD Houston ready
Senior quarterback Hunter Houston, who was banged up twice on a late second-quarter drive and didn’t play in the second half of Friday’s win over Northside, practiced on Monday and is ready for Friday’s conference opener against Mountain Home.
“He’s good,” Young said. “He had a hip pointer and those are really painful. He played through it. He’s been up here all weekend rehabbing. I think they’ve had him up here 24 hours a day for the last two days. He practiced and looked good. My expectation is that he will be ready to go.”
Houston completed 17of-20 passes for 238 yards and a touchdown before giving way to Archer, who completed 20-of-29 passes for four touchdowns and 273 yards along with two interceptions.
The Bulldogs were ready to put the thrilling win over Northside to rest earlier than normal with the new two-year cycle forcing the 6A-West into a nine-team alignment and starting conference play two weeks early.
“Our theme this season is Tabula Rasa, which is a clean slate,” Young said. “This team is starting over. It doesn’t matter what they’ve done in the past. They have an opportunity to write their own story individually and as a football team. It goes along with week two. What we did last week was awesome and we enjoyed it, but we’re starting over this week. We’re 0-0 and starting conference against Mountain Home, which is fired up to play us.”
LAVACA Turf delay
The Golden Arrows will delay their home opener one week, but it will be well worth it once the new artificial turf is ready.
Lavaca were scheduled to host Horatio, but will head far south for the game instead.
“Our turf is going down right now, but I don’t think it will not be ready by Friday,” Lavaca coach Mark Headley said. “We’re moving it to be safe.”
This season marks the 46th year for football at Lavaca, and Headley, who also serves as the Athletic Director, started pushing for turf about midway through last school year. The Lavaca Board of Education approved several improvements for the athletic fields in April.
“I’m the AD and I want all of our facilities to get better,” Headley said. “Our first phase is turf on the football field, the infields on both baseball and softball, and then we eventually have a gym expansion on down the road. I don’t want to stay the same. I want to improve things for our kids.”
Lavaca unveil its new turf against Mount Ida on Sept. 16.
“I’m excited about it, but it has been stressful,” Headley said. “I really pushed for it. They’re starting to get it down, so I am getting some relief.”
The Golden Arrows opened the season on Friday with a 40-7 win at Magazine. Lavaca scored 27 points in the first quarter and led 33-0 at the half.
Senior quarterback Maddox Noel scored on runs of 13 and 14 yards, and threw a 30-yard scoring pass to Andrew Johnson all in the first quarter. Dakota Hartsfield scored from two yards out, and Fischer Martin recorded a safety when he tackled a Rattler in the end zone.
MOUNTAINBURG Dean era
The Dragons made Zach Dean’s debut as their head coach a successful one with an 18-12 win at Danville.
“It was a good way to not only start a career but a season,” Dean said. “It wasn’t as pretty as I had hoped, but I’ll take an ugly win over a pretty loss any day.”
Dean took over for Tom Harrell, who retired as the dean of head coaches in the state, following last season. Dean was an assistant for Harrell for eight years.
Lightning delayed Friday’s game about 30 minutes, which helped allay any pregame nerves for Dean.
“Driving down, it’s always time to think and there were some butterflies,” Dean said. “We had the lightning delay. Once that happened the butterflies just went away.”
Mountainburg led 18-6 at the half but needed an interception by Austin Cooper to preserve the win.
CEDARVILLE Pirates prep
The Pirates enjoyed an extra week to prepare for Crawford County rival Mountainburg on Friday.
“The more we do this rival game, the more excited I get about it,” Cedarville coach Max Washausen said. “We’ve watched a lot of film on them. Mountainburg always plays us hard.”
Cedarville opened the season in week zero with a 48-18 loss at Perryville.
“We played them well at times, but we went through a tough spell in the third quarter where we let the game get out of hand,” Washausen said. “It was one of the better nonconference games we’ve played. I think it’s gotten us ready.”
Jace Baker ran for 135 yards and two scores on 20 carries, and Colton Arnold added 111 yards on 12 carries with a touchdown. In all, Cedarville ran for 317 yards on 51 carries in the loss.