Zebras abolish frets, Hurricane

Saturday, November 24, 2012

— The path Pine Bluff had taken to Friday’s Class 6A semifinals didn’t exactly have Coach Bobby Bolding feeling at ease.

His Zebras, though winners of nine consecutive games before Friday, hadn’t been tested in over a month, having turned games with Sheridan, Little Rock Hall and two with Benton into blowouts before halftime, putting his starters on the sideline for most of those games.

“Absolutely, it worried me,” Bolding said.

So the Zebras’ coach had his starters go through some extra conditioning this week to make up for the lost time and crossed his fingers.

Turns out, Bolding had nothing to worry about.

Pine Bluff held Jonesboro to 200 yards of offense, churned out 243 yards rushing and Rickey Clements threw a 64-yard touchdown pass to Devarious Rice early in the fourth quarter and the Zebras beat Jonesboro 24-0 at Jordan Stadium.

The victory sends Pine Bluff (11-1) to next week’s 6A championship game against Greenwood.

“I thought defense played well the entire game. It was the offense that didn’t come through on their end of the bargain,” said Jonesboro Coach Randy Coleman, whose team had 125 rushing yards.

“We’re a run-oriented team. We try to establish the run to set up the pass. We could never get that going.”

Jonesboro (9-3) still had a bit of hope early in the fourth quarter trailing 17-0 when Pine Bluff was flagged for holding and a Clements run got 6 yards to set up third-and-19 on the Zebras’ 36.

Clements then lofted a pass down the Jonesboro sideline to Rice, who coasted the rest of the way to the end zone to put Pine Bluff up 24-0 with 10:26 left.

The Zebras, who hadn’t allowed more than seven points in their previous six games, let Jonesboro get to their 22 on the game’s first drive, but Rice intercepted a Dequiris Anderson pass in the end zone. The Zebras went 78 yards and Walter Ashley’s 10-yard touchdown run gave them a 7-0 lead.

On Jonesboro’s second drive, Anderson’s 54-yard touchdown pass to Kevontae Pope was called back because of holding, and the Hurricane were forced to punt.

Austin McGehee’s 28-yard field goal on the next drive gave Pine Bluff a 10-0 lead, and Clements’ 4-yard run on a bootleg put the Zebras up 17-0 at halftime.

Ashley finished with 139 yards on 20 carries, 134 of which came in the first half.

Anderson and Martin Stafford each entered Friday’s game having rushed for over 1,000 yards. But Anderson’s longest run was 14 yards and he finished with 79 yards on 14 carries, and Stafford’s longest run was 17 yards and he finished with 65 on 19 carries.

Sports, Pages 31 on 11/24/2012