PEA RIDGE -- Pea Ridge had no problem putting its first loss of the season behind it Friday night.
Quarterback Jakota Sainsbury threw three first-quarter touchdown passes as the Blackhawks rolled over Waldron 40-0 in the first round of the Class 4A playoffs at Blackhawk Stadium.
Class 4A
Pea Ridge 40, Waldron 0
Waldron^0^0^0^0^—^0
Pea Ridge^26^14^0^0^—^40
First Quarter
Pea-Winn 51 run (Green kick), 11:37.
Pea-Holtgrew 18 pass from Sainsbury (Green kick), 7:43.
Pea-Witcher 66 pass from Sainsbury (kick failed), 4:31.
Pea-Witcher 21 pass from Sainsbury (run failed), 0:43.
Second Quarter
Pea-Winn 63 run (Green kick), 10:33.
Pea-Pickthall 1 run (Green kick), 6:47.
Waldron was making its first playoff appearance since 2003.
Pea Ridge dropped its final regular-season game to Shiloh Christian lst week to end its thoughts of an undefeated season, but Blackhawks second-year coach Stephen Neal said his team put that game behind them with no problem.
Neal said they started fast, which is something the Blackhawks haven't done as much in the past few weeks.
"We talked to our kids last week and I told a lot of people during the course of the week, our kids will respond because that's the make-up of their character," Neal said. "The Pea Ridge community and the Pea Ridge schools have done a fantastic job raising these kids and we knew they would bounce back.
"That's what we were striving for this week. We've had some struggles coming out with a fast start and playing really well at the beginning. We were really focused on that this week. Our offensive line responded really, really well tonight. We challenged them this week as far as staying on blocks and things like that."
Pea Ridge (10-1), the top seed from the 4A-1, will host the Hamburg next week in a rematch of the season opener. The Blackhawks routed Hamburg in the season opener at UCA.
The Blackhawks' defense held Waldron (5-6) to just one first down in the first quarter as Pea Ridge grabbed a 26-0 lead. Senior running back Drew Winn got the Pea Ridge scoring going on a 51-yard touchdown run less than a minute into the game. He added a 63-yard touchdown run early in the second quarter to push the Blackhawks' lead to 33-0.
Winn finished with 141 yards on just six carries as the Blackhawks led 40-0 at halftime to invoke the Arkansas Activities Association mercy-rule to start the second half.
Sainsbury completed 8 of 11 passes for 194 yards and three touchdowns in just a half. He completed touchdown passes of 18, 66 and 21 yards, two of those going to Jordan Witcher. The 18-yarder went to Hayden Holtgrewe.
Sainsbury looked as though he would have another touchdown pass, but Holtgrewe was tackled at the 1 after some nice open field moves. Robby Pickthall finished off the drive on the next play with 6 minutes, 47 seconds left before halftime to set what would be the final score.
Sports on 11/11/2017