Saints’ Seniors Familiar With Finals

— Mitchell Roberts tried to quit football as a seventh-grader.

The Shiloh Christian senior said he wasn’t prepared for the demands of the sport, but his older brother wouldn’t let him walk away. Blake Roberts, who played quarterback at Shiloh in 2007 and now is a pitcher at Central Arkansas, recognized the potential in his little brother, even if Mitchell didn’t see it then.

“I was 6 foot in the seventh grade,” Mitchell Roberts said. “I wasn’t a small guy. I was mentally weak.”

Fast-forward the clock to 2009 and Roberts, now a 6-foot-3, 230-pound senior linebacker, will play in his fourth consecutive state championship game Saturday in War Memorial Stadium. Roberts is one of 13 seniors on the Saints roster that will lead the team against Lonoke at 6:30 p.m. in the Class 4A state championship game.

Although this year’s seniors credit the 2006 Shiloh seniors for setting the bar, it’s this group that has taken the program to a new level. For the second time in the program’s illustrious history, the Saints will make a fourth straight state finals appearance. Shiloh is the only school in Arkansas to have two runs of four straight title game appearances in the modern (since 1970) era. Shiloh made five consecutive finals from 1997-2001 when it played in the state’s smallest classification.

“There’s nothing like it,” Roberts said. “We expect it of ourselves to make it back every year. And expect to win. We practice with that intensity and that focus. For some of us seniors it’s our last game ever. We’re going to go all out for it. I don’t think it’s really hit us yet that it’s our last game ... potentially ever.”

Three weeks ago, in a third-round playoff game aganst Nashville, the Saints’ run to Little Rock appeared over. Trailing 35-0 with more than 8 minutes left in the second quarter, Shiloh’s chances of a title game appearance were slipping away.

“When we were down 35-nothing, I was going out on that kickoff return team and I pretty much had the idea in my mind that it was over,” safety Wilson Huett said. “It was done.”

The Saints rallied for a 51-49 win, staging a comeback for the ages. The Saints knocked off Bald Knob last week 48-7 in the semifinals, despite a host of turnovers and penalties.

“Four years in a row is a big deal,” Huett said. “We’re pumped about it. We know it’s our last game.”

Way back when this year’s group were freshmen, they got a first-hand look at what it takes to play at a championship level by mimicking the seniors on the ’06 team, wide receiver Jake Scott said.

“We saw the commitment it takes, the work it takes to win a championship,” said Scott, whose older brother Bo was a key member of that team.

Huett said the extra practices during the playoffs are also a huge plus for the younger players to keep the program operating at a high level.

“You get all the weeks of playoffs and championship week practices to help you next year,” Huett said. “And if you show yourself on the scout team, then the coaches will note that and that will go into their minds for the following spring. So it’s an early introduction to high school football and the speed of things.”

Scott said it’s as much the off-field memories as the on-field success that he will carry with him.

“We’ve had some great memories from Little Rock,” Scott said. “I remember last year we left a guy at the hotel. He was one of the funniest guys on the team to begin with, so it was really funny.”

Scott also said the competition on the field is rivaled by an annual Halo tournament on XBox at the team hotel.

“Every year we have a designated room where we bring an XBox and coach (Caleb) Perry, our offensive line coach, comes in and plays Halo with us. For like hours on end and it’s always pretty hilarious,” Scott said. “It’s just always a blast going down to Little Rock.”

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