Washington County Enterprise-Leader
Gentry Fends Off Prairie Grove
PIONEERS ESCAPE TIGERS 28-21
PRAIRIE GROVE — Gentry (5-3, 3-2) took a huge step towards securing a playoff berth by nailing down a 28-21 win at Prairie Grove (2-6, 2-3) Friday.
“We knew coming into this game it was going to be big for any playoff hopes,” said Gentry coach Paul Ernest. “We prepared for it that way and we kind of feel like it’s do or die time for us and we’d like to win the next two. We got two good teams in front of us. We got this one out of the way and it’s back to work.”
On the other sideline a third straight conference loss for the Tigers damaged their playoff hopes.
Prairie Grove trailed 28-7 when Gentry scored with starting quarterback Brandon Atwood moving to wide receiver for the second half and catching a 44-yard touchdown pass from Zach Jarnagan with 4:07 to play.
Ernest said the switch was by design and the team is pretty fortunate to have two pretty good athletes who can both play quarterback. Gentry racked up 403 yards of total offense. The two quarterbacks combined to complete 12-of-20 passes for 194 yards. The
Pioneers rushed for 209 yards on 43 carries which is their second highest output of the season.
“We’ve been trying to get Zach ready to get some reps. He’s been working all week at it. Brandon had a little bit of tendinitis in his shoulder,” Ernest said. “We thought it might be a time to look at someone else there against a good opponent and with the (14-0) lead we had at the half, we felt like it would be good coming out in the second half for him.”
The Tigers mounted a furious rally scoring a pair of touchdowns over a 2:51 span of the fourth quarter to make it a game.
Cordelle Whetsell hauled in a 41-yard touchdown pass from Knox Laird at the 11:16 mark of the fourth quarter, and after Gunnar Caudle recovered a Gentry fumble, Jared Harger turned the corner and sprinted 42 yards to the house. Paytin Higgins kicked both extrapoints and Prairie Grove rallied to within seven points with 8:25 remaining.
“We started too slow. They had a good plan on us. We couldn’t stop them. They couldn’t stop us. If we had started a quarter earlier we’d been alright,” said Prairie Grove coach Danny Abshier.
Gentry grabbed an 8-0 lead out the gate with Seiren Reding scoring on a 53-yard pass from Atwood. The Pioneers followed that with Jarnagan tacking on the 2-point conversion on a pass from Atwood less than two minutes into the game.
Atwood scored on a 13-yard run midway through the second quarter and Gentry took a 14-0 lead into the halftime break. The Pioneers increased their advantage to 22-0 with Brennan Crosby carrying the ball in from 13 yards out. Jarnagan ran for the 2-point conversion with 8:43 showing in the third quarter.
Gentry began the season starting three sophomores on the offensive line before losing Aiden Whitehead to injury. Guards Isaiah Freeman (5-8, 235) and Lucas Guinn (5-8, 197) pull on almost every play forcing defenses to account for them.
“They’ve come along, they’ve done a great job. Our offensive line coach John Madding does a great job with them and we do a lot of influence schemes when we see on film that teams are well-coached like Prairie Grove is and they are going to read their guards and they are going to honor their keys and we did some of that tonight and it worked out well for us,” Ernest said.
Prairie Grove finally got on the scoreboard aided by a short field when Gentry attempted an onside kick. The Tigers covered 52 yards in 5 plays. Foster Layman ran for 11 yards, then Keiandre Hobbs anticipated, shielded and caught an underthrown pass gaining 29 yards. Gentry kept a pair of Cade Grant runs in check, but couldn’t prevent Whetsell from finding paydirt on a 6-yard wingback reverse. Higgins’ PAT made the deficit, 22-7, with 7:22 to go in the third.
The quarter expired with the same score showing. Laird completed a 41-yard touchdown pass to Whetsell and gamely stood in the pocket taking a blast from Gentry’s Reding while hitting Layman on a screen pass that went for 27 yards and set up Harger’s touchdown scamper.
“There’s no question Knox is plenty tough,” Abshier said. “He’s been hit a few times. I think he’s finally figured it out that it doesn’t hurt as much as he thought it would. That screen pass, we pulled off a couple of them. We were kind of hoping for one more.”
Prairie Grove dug in defensively on the ensuing Gentry possession, but not before the Pioneers picked up one first down and crossed into Tiger territory. David Hall belted Jarnagan on third-and-4 then Graham Guenther sacked Jarnagan on fourth down to get the ball back for the Tigers.
Reversing field on a running play lost six yards and put Prairie Grove in third-and-13. Jarnagan broke up a Tiger pass on third down. On fourth down Prairie Grove tried to set up another screen pass but the ball was thrown short and fell into the grass. Gentry then ran out the clock.
“It was a little more interesting than I like, but I felt it was more on the offense than our defense, a short field after a bad punt. Our defensive coaches, coach Daniel Ramsey and Ethan Ramsey and J.T. Barlow had a great scheme and they executed it well. I was worried about it throughout the week like I always am but they did a great job with it. The kids played hard and all the credit goes to the kids on that,” Ernest said.
Ernest celebrated his first win over Prairie Grove since taking over the Pioneer program in 2015.
“They’ve kind of been a thorn in my side even before I got to Gentry. We played them in the playoffs where I was at before and got some heartbreak going on there. This was the first time I’ve beaten Prairie
Grove at Gentry. I’m part of a team that was able to do that so I’m proud of that and the kids are pretty pumped about it,” Ernest said.
Abshier noted injuries to receivers Jackson Sorters and Caden Redfern limited Prairie Grove’s offensive options.
“We lost Redfern, that kind of hurt. We’ve been bummed up all week,” Abshier said. “Jackson is a kind of possession-receiver.”
This week Prairie Grove goes to Berryville while Gentry travels to Lincoln, a team Ernest has yet to see on film.
“They follow us in the schedule every week so they’ve seen us since week four. We haven’t seen them yet so I’m kind of anxious to get some film on them and see what they’re about. I know Coach (Don) Harrison over there does a great job with them and their defense always plays hard, plays aggressive,” Ernest said. “Looking at the film and seeing them, last year they were a 4-3, cover-2 team and didn’t like to change much from that and they were really good at it. I expect that to be the same. They are a spread team and Coach Harrison does a tremendous job with his spread game and it always seems to give us fits.”