Washington County Enterprise-Leader
Fourth quarter belongs to junior Cardinals
FARMINGTON — Farmington mistakes filled coach Peyton Covington’s list of capital improvements needed, but owned the fourth quarter in defeating Alma 34-14 in junior high football Thursday.
The junior Cardinals scored twice in the final 7:02 to expand a 21-14 lead to a three touchdown advantage while overcoming plenty of miscues.
“We struggled a little bit defensively. Alma only scored 14 points so I can’t be too upset, but there’s things we got to clean up on the defensive side. We had two three-and-outs on the offensive side, so we’re telling these guys any three-and-out is unacceptable,” Covington said.
Covington’s got his eye on fixing special teams, too.
“We muffed three punts. We lost one, so we really got to fix that, too. There’s things that we’ve still got to work on, but hey, 34-14, against a pretty good Alma team. I’m happy and we’re on to Dardanelle,” Covington said.
Max Eldridge retrieved one of those muffed punts and turned it into a big return at a critical juncture in the game with Farmington nursing a 21-14 lead. The Airedales compounded the situation by getting flagged for an “unsportsmanship-like conduct” penalty that tacked another 15 yards on to the end of Eldridge’s punt return with 7:02 remaining in the fourth quarter.
“He’s a playmaker with the ball in his hands, but we’ve got to work on catching those punts,” Covington said.
The junior Cardinal offense set up shop from Alma’s 32 and lost a yard with Slade Norwood taking a sack on first down. On second he hit Kalin Hendrix, who eluded one tackle and broke into the clear for a 33-yard touchdown reception. Just barely over six minutes showed on the clock when he scored. Braden Conrad booted the extra-point, doubling the junior Cardinals’ to 28-14.
Farmington stuffed runs on first and second down, so Alma attempted its version of a double-pass on the next series. The junior Cardinal defense didn’t bite on the junior Airedales’ efforts to sell the play as a run and defensive back Michael Shoffit stayed with the receiver and deflected a pass, forcing an incompletion on third down.
Alma punted and Farmington again had trouble fielding the ball. Eldridge fell on it, retaining possession for the junior Cardinals at their own 37. From there, Farmington imposed its will with the offensive line opening holes for the running game, forcing Alma to burn all three of its time-outs.
Eldridge carried nine straight times, capping the drive with a 2-yard touchdown run and taking four minutes off the clock. A bad snap on the extra-point led to a botched conversion and Farmington settled for a 3414 lead with only 10 seconds left.
“That’s what we’re telling them that we should be capable of and at any given point we should be able to get three to four yards,” Covington said. “Most of them time we’re able to. Sometimes, we’re not, but that’s what we did on that last drive. We just said, ‘Look, offense, you can close the game out right now if you want to,’ and they took that to heart and that’s what they did.”
The additional six points could benefit Farmington in the conference standings, but Covington viewed the last touchdown as more of a reward for his hard-working offense.
“If we get into some sort of tiebreaker I think it might come down to points, but they drove the field and they said, ‘Let’s go for it.’ I was proud of the drive so I said let’s finish it,” Covington said.
For Covington, Alma represents another school in the River Valley Conference with a strong football tradition. Any win over the Airedales stands out as a quality win.
“Numbers-wise, they’re quite a bit bigger, top end of 5A. I think we’re middle,” Covington said.
The junior Cardinals got off to a good start, scoring on the first play from scrimmage by executing a trick play, running a reverse to wide receiver Jackson Williams, who passed the ball to Kalin Hendrix for a big-play touchdown to grab an early 7-0 lead.
“Defensively, we had some guys step up at opportune times, but to me the player of the game is Kalin Hendrix. He took it, just about every time we threw to him, to the house,” Covington said. “They were just little hitch routes that he took to the house except for the first long pass. It was a reverse pass.”
Hendrix finished with three touchdowns while Jett Pierce had one score and Eldridge the other touchdown. Norwood’s being groomed for the future as are all the junior Cardinals.
“Slade’s got to be ready when he becomes a 10th grader, a sophomore. We take every level [of football] here seriously from seventh grade to twelfth, we’re coaching them as hard as we can. There’s no plays off. You’ll see our head varsity coach [J.R. Eldridge] at every practice, at every game, intense, so that stuff matters. We take every play and every opponent and every team seriously,” Covington said. “We hear, ‘Oh, it’s just seventh grade,’ and it’s like knives in our ears because it’s important.”