Junior High Notebook

Woodland Defense Playing Well

Woodland has wasted no time picking up where it left off last year.

The Cowboys lost many pieces -- as do most ninth-grade teams -- off last year's conference champion team, but have raced out to a 3-0 start, giving up a total of just 13 points through those three weeks. Coach Bobby Crockett was quick to praise defensive coordinator Bo Patrick and his scheme.

"Our defense has been playing really well," Crockett said. "That's a tribute to coach Patrick and our kids. Defense has definitely been our strength."

Offense isn't lagging, either. Quarterback Mason Shaw ran for a touchdown and threw for another against Bentonville Black last week and running back JD Lucke added a score, as well.

The perfect-start Cowboys travel to George this week in their final game before divisional play starts in Week Five.

Southwest On The Rise

Coach Bruce Matthews is pleased with how his Southwest team has bounced back from a heart-breaker Week One against Central.

The Cougars fell in the final seconds against their rivals, but have proceeded to roll Ramay and George in the following weeks by a combined score of 63-14. Thursday's win against the Wranglers especially had Matthews thinking the Cougars are on the right track.

"We made enough mistakes (in the first two games) to lose five. But we improved on some things from the week before," Matthews said. "The first unit played well enough to see some improvement."

The game against George pitted maybe the best most dynamic players in the conference with Cougars safety and punt return Tevin Eckwood against Wranglers quarterback Trevor Browning. If it was a treat for fans, it was even more so for Matthews, he said.

Tough Sledding For Black

Bentonville Black's record may be a bit deceiving after three weeks.

Coach Chris Hutchens' team has played one of the most difficult nondivisional schedules, having beaten Gold in the opener before falling to unbeaten Heritage in Week Two and Woodland on Thursday. It won't stop this week as Black travels to Southwest.

It has, if nothing else, proven get the team will be battle-tested once that divisional play begins.

"Our kids haven't really played together before, coming from two different junior highs," Hutchens said. "Hopefully by week 5, Ramay, first division game, we'll have some things figured out."

Don't Call Heritage A Surprise

Of the 12 teams in the Northwest Arkansas Conference only three remain unbeaten after three weeks.

One of those is Aaron Ledbetter's Heritage bunch. The War Eagles handled rival Rogers in the opener and Siloam Springs last week. In between came a 20-18 win over Black. Now Ramay awaits in the final non-divisional game of the year.

"The kids are working hard and it's good to see them playing well. It's just good to see us go out and execute," Ledbetter said. "We knew we had a team that's going to be able to run the football pretty well."

And they have. Frank James and Riley Scroggins are speed and power duo no one has been able to stop yet this season. Between the two of them and a dominant offensive line, Heritage may have the best pure running game in the conference.

"We've had some guys, a couple kids on the offensive line really step up and play well," Ledbetter said. "Basically we knew we were going to be able to run the quarterback well. Pleased to stay with that."