SMALL SCHOOLS PREP FOOTBALL NOTEBOOK

Gentry’s Eathen Ramsey escapes from Gravette linebacker Glenn Overturf, left, on Oct. 1 while tight end Kevin Scherer, right, makes a block at Gravette. The Pioneers travel to Nashville on Friday for their first-round game in the Class 4A playoffs.
Gentry’s Eathen Ramsey escapes from Gravette linebacker Glenn Overturf, left, on Oct. 1 while tight end Kevin Scherer, right, makes a block at Gravette. The Pioneers travel to Nashville on Friday for their first-round game in the Class 4A playoffs.

Trumann Plays Different Style Of Game

— The Class 4A state playoffs are causing Gravette to prepare for a different kind of football than the Lions have been accustomed to seeing.

Gravette (9-1), the second seed from the 4A-1 Conference, hosts Trumann (5-4) in a first-round game Friday night. Trumann enters postseason play as the third seed from the 4A-3 Conference following last week’s 42-21 victory over Highland.

The Wildcats run the flexbone offense, with quarterback Jimmy Creecy leading the way. Creecy scored on a 50-yard run on the second play of Thursday’s game and also threw a touchdown pass to Dustin Miller, whose 79-yard kickoff return for a touchdown put Trumann ahead to stay.

“It worries me a little bit because Trumann plays option football,” Gravette coach Bill Harrelson said. “Our players will have to do a good job on their assignments.

“Trumann is a big, physical team with a couple of 300-pounders on the offensive line. Those 300-pounders also play on the defensive and will be tough to move, but hopefully we’ll be able to find a crease to run through.”

— Henry Apple

Selph Happy With Progress

West Fork coach Rodney Selph said his team is playing with a lot of confidence because of its recent success.

It’s something he doesn’t want to see go away.

The Tigers, who finished their regular season 8-2, went undefeated in 3A-1 Conference play this year to get one of the No. 1 seeds in the Class 3A playoffs. On Friday, West Fork will host Cedarville.

“(Cedarville) has some really good running backs, they play hard and they’re going to be tough to play,” Selph said. “They run the Diamond-T offense, a scheme that not a lot of teams run anymore, so we’re going to have to be ready for that.”

Selph said his team will also have some players back this week who haven’t played in recent games, including Logan Genz and Wil Jarnagan. Genz recently had mononucleosis and Jarnagan sat out against Lincoln after suffering a minor injury against Elkins.

“I’m definitely happy to have some of our kids back, that’s for sure,” Selph said. “On defense, our defensive backs are playing well and our lines on both sides of the ball are really doing good things. We’ve had six straight games with an interception so we’ve got to keep that up.”

— Nathan Allen

Cardinals Facing Uphill Battle

Farmington had a tough task last week playing against Shiloh Christian in its regular-season finale.

It doesn’t get any easier this week.

The Cardinals (4-6), the No. 5 seed from the 4A-1 Conference, will play at No. 1 Pulaski Academy on Friday in the first round of the Class 4A playoffs.

Farmington coach Mike Adams said it’s no easy task having to play teams like Shiloh and Pulaski Academy in back-to-back weeks.

“We’ve seen (Pulaski) on film and there’s a reason they’re ranked as high as they are,” Adams said. “They’re not quite as big as Shiloh is, but their quarterback can run, their tailback can run hard and they just spread the ball out so well all over the field.”

Adams said the only positive to Friday’s game is that his players will be accustomed to playing a team like Pulaski because of how similar it is to Shiloh.

“There’s a lot of carryover on the offensive side of the ball,” Adams said. “It’s not that way on defense, but having just played Shiloh, we should be ready for that kind of speed.”

In order to win the game, Adams said his team has to make consistent first downs, run the ball effectively and make open-field tackles on defense to prevent the big pass play.

— Nathan Allen

Penalties Plague No. 1 Saints

SPRINGDALE — While Shiloh Christian was certainly the most dominant team in the 4A-1 Conference again this season in winning the league title for the third straight season, the Saints were also the most penalized, something coach Josh Floyd said the team will need to improve upon starting this week.

Against Farmington in the regular-season finale Friday, the Saints were penalized 11 times for 105 yards, including two personal foul and one unsportsmanlike conduct penalties. In the past three games, the Saints have been penalized more than 11 times in all three for more than 100 yards.

“A lot of times it seems like we get a lot of penalties in conference play and then we get in the playoffs and we get about two per game,” Floyd said following Friday’s 41-0 win.

In 10 games this season, the Saints (9-1) have unofficially been flagged for 18 personal foul or unsportsmanlike penalties, although five of those were face mask calls.

“We’ve got to fix some things,” Floyd said. “We’ve got to be a little smarter at times.”

Shiloh hosts Warren on Friday in Champions Stadium in the first round of the Class 4A state playoffs, starting at 7:30 p.m.

— Chip Souza

Gentry Has Tough Draw

GENTRY — Gentry is making the school’s first postseason appearance since 1998 and the Pioneers got a tough draw in the first round of the Class 4A playoffs.

Gentry will travel to Nashville (8-2) on Friday to play one of the state’s best football programs. Gentry (6-4) was eliminated from the postseason race the final week of the season the two previous years.

“Making the playoffs has certainly been a goal of ours since we got here,” fourth-year Gentry coach Brian Little said. “Nashville is very talented. They have tradition and they expect to be in postseason play, and they expect to win and go far.

“There is not another place in the state of Arkansas that follows their high school athletics like the way Nashville does. We know the atmosphere will be great.”

But Gentry has a little experience of winning in a hostile environment. The second week of the season, Gentry traveled to Charleston and stunned the Tigers 27-13.

“Charleston is another tradition-rich town with a lot of success,” Little said. “So, we will know what to expect and we talk a little about it. I had a feeling going into the year we were going to break through. And the win at Charleston certainly gave us the momentum we needed.”

— Paul Nielsen

Speed A Concern For Pirates

GREENLAND — While preparing for Friday’s first-round playoff game, Greenland coach Lee Larkan admitted that something stood out about Prescott on film.

The Curley Wolves (7-3) are fast, and not just a little bit more than the Pirates (8-2). They are significantly faster, which gives Larkan reason to be concerned about his defense’s ability to slow them down.

Greenland, as the second seed out of the 3A-1 Conference, hosts Prescott at 7:30 p.m. Friday.

“They do a lot of things, and they do them fast. They’ve probably got seven or eight kids that are faster than anybody we have,” Larkan said of the Curley Wolves. “So we’re going to have to get more than one person to the ball, and we’re going to have to tackle well because there won’t be a second chance.”

The good news for the Pirates: They’ve managed to make up for their lack of speed during their turnaround from a 2-8 finish last season.

Larkan said he has no players who can run a 4.6- or 4.7-second 40-yard dash, and instead he has a team that has gotten the job done with 4.9 speed.

“We’re 8-2 against people who are faster than us because we haven’t been faster than anybody we’ve played all year,” Larkan said. “(But) we haven’t seen anything like this.”

— Alex Abrams

Elks Look To Regroup

ELKINS — A 6-1 start to the regular season ended in disappointing fashion for Elkins. Now in the middle of a three-game losing streak and at 6-4 overall, the Elks will look to regain their edge Friday when they host Riverview in the first round of the Class 3A playoffs.

“We didn’t perform very well against Greenland, then we played better against West Fork but just came up short. Then last week against Green Forest was probably our worst game of the year,” Elkins coach Aaron Clark said.

“Last week scared me a little bit because maybe they just knew they were already in the playoffs and going to be at home, so that could have had something to do with it. But I can’t imagine that they won’t be ready for the playoffs to show what we can do when we play our best.”

Despite the three straight losses, Elkins still earned a home playoff game as the No. 3 seed from the 3A-1 Conference, an advantage Clark hopes will pay off Friday.

“Having to travel is always tough and sometimes in the playoffs we’ve been set quite a ways away,” Clark said. “So I hope it will be an advantage to be at home.”

— Vernon Tarver

Upcoming Events