Tigers Relish Their Title Game Run

LITTLE ROCK — Danny Abshier has had some good teams at Prairie Grove. Some really good teams.

Three times, his Tigers were a game away from reaching the mecca of high school football: War Memorial Stadium, the site of state championship games since 1983.

Prairie Grove finally cracked through this season, before losing to tradition-rich Nashville 39-20 on Saturday night in the Class 4A championship game.

It’s a goal for every team and one reached by the Tigers for the first time.

“It’s something we wanted to do. It’s something every school wants to do,” Abshier said. “That’s part of the goal when you start.”

It’s been a long time coming for Prairie Grove.

In 1997, the Tigers lost to McGehee in the semifinals.

In 2003, the Tigers lost to Rivercrest. In 2012, they lost to Stuttgart. So close. “I wish I knew then what I know now,” Abshier said.

Abshier, who is in his 23rd year as the coach at Prairie Grove and 26th overall after three years as an assistant under Mark Mallett, was beginning to doubt he’d ever get to take a team to Little Rock to play for the title.

Prior to this year, Prairie Grove was nowhere to be found as a possibility in Class 4A to play for a state championship.

Dardanelle, Nashville, Star City, Pulaski Robinson and Arkadelphia were the top five teams in the classification in the preseason Associated Press poll. Those were considered the legitimate threats to win the championship.

Prairie Grove’s loss to rival Farmington in the season opener certainly didn’t give Tigers fans a reason to think this would be their year.

“Right after the game, we had a long way to go,” Abshier said. “What adjustments we made the changes, they made up their mind. The senior class is a really sharp class and did a great job, and we had a good bunch of juniors backing them up.”

The Tigers, though, breezed through the 4A-1 conference.

In the playoffs, Prairie Grove knocked off two of those teams considered title contenders, Star City and Arkadelphia, the last two weeks by a combined 111-63.

“I’ve never been the type of person that brags about anything or about any team, but at some point you have to say ‘Hey, we are pretty good,’” Abshier said. “We have to be because these things are happening, that this team could be the one. Yes, we could. We were here tonight, and we could be the one.”

That’s when it finally occurred to the veteran coach that he had a team worthy of playing in War Memorial Stadium on the state’s biggest stage.

“I talked to some other coaches about the same thing; when you get here you think ‘I might never get this thing,’” Abshier said. “Sometimes some of the best coaching is done and some of the best advances are made by teams that don’t win the conference.”

Abshier has always been a Northwest Arkansas guy. He played under Allen Holland at Farmington. He served as an assistant

under Tom Tice at Harrison. Then he moved back closer to home when he took an assistant job at Prairie Grove.

Veteran leadership paved the Tigers’ way to Little Rock this year.

“We had terrific senior leadership all year long,” Abshier said. “They wanted to do this. They wanted to make it happen…. To get here, it’s the first time ever. It’s a good group of guys to do it with. We had fun the whole time. This one hurt. The seniors will hurt for a while. We’ll all hurt for a while.”

Saturday night, Abshier, already the winningest coach in school history with 166 wins, cemented his name in Prairie Grove coaching lore.

“We got here,” Abshier said. “Who knows if I ever get back. It matters now that we got to this point and didn’t get this one. I’m sure if we did, next year it would be the same thing. Whether you get it or not, you’re going to try to get it again because that’s what you do.”