Cooler, milder weather greets local football teams
Following a week of high temperatures hovering around the century mark, Monday ushered in a refreshingly cooler morning, which was good news for area high school football teams kicking off the first official day of summer practices with temps only in the low to mid 70s.
Both the Forrest City junior and senior high teams worked through the morning session sharing the Sam Smith Stadium field with the Junior Mustangs occupying the south end and the varsity Mustangs working the north end of the field.
Both teams will continue the morning non contact practice sessions this week before going to pads and contact next week.
Junior Mustangs head coach Chris Siler returns for his third season with junior high while the varsity Mustangs will be under the guidance of first year head coach Teli White.
Just to the west of Sam Smith Stadium, the Palestine-Wheatley junior high team was on the practice field as well working through their first full day of drills. The varsity Patriots worked through their first full practice Monday evening.
That schedule will remain the same for this week with the junior high going in the morning and the varsity in the evening, according to first year head coach Paxton Crawford.
The two schools will face each other on the football field for a pair of preseason scrimmage games. Palestine-Wheatley will host the Junior Mustangs on Thursday, Aug. 19 at Patriot Field while Forrest City will host the varsity Patriots on Friday, Aug. 20.
Both schools will open their varsity season schedule on Friday, Aug. 27 on the road with Forrest City at Star City and Palestine-Wheatley at Des Arc.
Both the Mustangs and Patriots are coming off painful 2020 seasons interrupted several times by the Covid pandemic.
The Mustangs, limited to just seven games a year ago, finished the 2020 season at 1-6 overall amid three cancelled games which led to the Mustangs to opting out of last year's state playoffs.
This year, the Mustangs season schedule looks a a bit different with Pine Bluff Dollarway dropping off the Mustangs schedule this season and Little Rock Mills filling the third playing date, which will be the first football meeting between the two teams since the 2001 season.
The Mustangs last faced a regular season Little Rock team in 2007 when they played Pulaski Academy in that year's season opener.
The Junior Mustangs ended the 2020 season at 2-7 overall with one cancelled game, while the seventh grade Colts finished the season at 7-0 winning three games, all three shutout wins, while being awarded four forfeit victories.
Palestine-Wheatley, 3-6 overall last season, opted out of last season's state playoffs as well following a final season game loss to Harrisburg, which took the Patriots out of conference contention to finish in the top five.
Palestine-Wheatley will play their first two regular season games this year on the road, followed by back-to-back open dates, created by Marvell dropping down to play an eightman season schedule in front of the original scheduled open date.