Washington County Enterprise-Leader
Kiss Of Victory
CARDINALS’ WIN CHRISTENS NEW STADIUM
FARMINGTON — There was nothing quite like the kiss of victory to christen Farmington’s brand new $16 million state-of-the-art sports complex and Cardinal Stadium.
Friday’s debut was sweetened by a 27-7 win over No. 1 rival, Prairie Grove, giving Farmington a 31-29 edge in the all-time series. Farmington coach Mike Adams liked the way his players responded to challenges.
“There was a lot of pressure on our kids to have this new facility and you know it would have made Prairie Grove’s year, it would have made their decade to come over and win the first game here, but our guys came through and they got it done,” Adams said.
Crucial to Farmington’s success was a 13-play, 81-yard drive to tie the score after Prairie Grove took the opening kickoff and used 6:28 to take an early 7-0 lead on 14 straight running plays capped by Foster Layman’s 1-yard plunge. Cardinal quarterback Marqwaveon Watson completed 5-of-5 passes for 40 yards on the drive converting third down twice and finding senior Drew Sturgeon on fourth down for a 5-yard touchdown.
“Marqwaveon did a good job. We had a little trouble up front defensively in the first half. We only had one possession the whole first half. Prairie Grove had a great scheme. They found a weakness
and they were exploiting it. We could never get them stopped,” Adams said. “We helped them two or three times when we had a stupid penalty that gave them a first down. We jumped offsides a couple of times and gave them a first down, but when we finally got the ball the offense did a great job executing and getting a score in.”
From the perspective of Prairie Grove coach Danny Abshier, momentum shifted when the Tigers failed to convert fourth-and-one when Farmington linebacker Hayden Cox stopped Layman at the Cardinal seven with less than minute remaining in the first half. Up until that point, the Tigers dominated time of possession reeling off 33 plays to 13 for Farmington, but only had a 7-7 tie to show for their efforts at halftime.
“We just didn’t pull it off. We just didn’t do the job. We were going by the plan. That hurt. It changed a little. We made a couple of mistakes and didn’t capitalize on theirs and it just didn’t happen for us,” Abshier said.
Farmington asserted its offense going 81 yards in nine plays to seize a 14-7 lead to begin the second half on Ian Cartwright’s 1-yard run. The big play on the drive was Cade Elsik’s 47-yard run. Watson hit Sturgeon for 6 yards to convert a third down inside the Tiger 10.
When Prairie Grove got the ball, Farmington’s defense stymied them. The Tigers suffered one sack on their first series and two on their second during the third quarter. Cox stopped another fourth down run causing a turnover on downs in Farmington territory early in the fourth.
“Offensively, we dominated the game in the second half, and our defense made some adjustments. James Payne came in at rover and had a great second half. DeCory Thomas had a couple of big blitzes off the edge where he created some havoc,” Adams said. “I was disappointed. We had a couple of fumbles that stopped the momentum and made it a little tighter than it should have been, but our kids came through when it counted and we felt like we wore them down in the fourth quarter.”
Farmington put the game away in the fourth quarter with touchdowns by Drew Sturgeon on a 16-yard jet sweep at the 6:27 mark and fullback Josh Stettmeier’s 25-yard run with 1:30 to play. Stettmeier broke the through a line and only one Tiger had a shot at him, but he stepped out of an ankle tackle inside the five.
“Josh is a powerful young man and you’re not going to ankle-tackle him. You’re going to have to get all over him to get him down, and of course Drew is so talented and so fast. He was gassed, but he had enough gas in the tank to go get that done. So we’re pleased with all of them. We still made a lot of mistakes, but we’ll learn from this and hopefully get better next week,” Adams said.
Friday Farmington goes to Gravette while Prairie Grove is also on the road at Dardanelle. Both games kickoff at 7 p.m.