Booneville, West Fork Big Targets

SPRINGDALE — West Fork coach Rodney Selph realizes that nobody saw the Tigers coming last fall.

This year, he knows everybody will.

After sweeping through their conference schedule unscathed, the Tigers are again hoping this year they can repeat last year’s success — and go even further.

“Last year was a first for us,” Selph said. “We’ve never done anything like that before, by winning a conference title and going undefeated. It was something this community and all of our kids had a lot of fun being a part of, and we don’t want that feeling to go away.”

West Fork, which has 10 returning starters this season, finished its season 9-2 last fall after losing to Heber Springs in the second round of the Class 4A playoffs.

Booneville could possibly be the biggest team to beat this season, as the Bearcats have a favorable schedule and plenty of tradition on their side.

“There’s no doubt Booneville’s got to be at the top of the list, especially with the experience they have coming back, they’re the team to beat,” Clarksville coach Michael Banning said. “I think one of us (Clarksville or West Fork) has a chance at beating them, but we’ve got to go to their place.”

Although the Bearcats haven’t won an outright conference championship since 2005, Booneville’s earned 12 straight postseason berths and the school has won more playoff games (51) than the other seven schools combined.

“It’s either on our backs or Clarksville,” Booneville coach Scott Hyatt said. “Clarksville’s coming back off a great year, and they’ve got Wesleigh Foster. Coach Banning does a great job, and West Fork surprised everybody last year, and they’ve got a good group back.”

Ozark has a new coach this season in Brooks Coatney, who revamped the Hillbillies’ offense into a spread scheme. Dover, Pottsville and Subiaco Academy also have high expectations, and Dardanelle is hoping to earn its seventh straight postseason berth.

The Sand Lizards, who haven’t won an outright league title since 1987, lost three conference games by four points or less last season, including a 21-19 loss to West fork and a 17-14 defeat at the hands of Booneville.

“You better be ready to play on Friday nights,” Banning said. “Dover didn’t win many games (two) last year, but they’re athletic, and Subiaco’s (Keon) Walters — when he wants to play he can be one of the best players in the conference. I don’t really know what to expect from Ozark, and Dardanelle, they’re going to be right there.”

SOUTHWEST TIMES RECORD SPORTS WRITER KEVIN TAYLOR CONTRIBUTED TO THIS REPORT.

SPRINGDALE — Some of the state’s best high school quarterbacks will compete against each other today to try to win the annual Top Gun QB1 Challenge.

Today’s competition, which begins at 7 p.m. at Shiloh Christian’s Champions Stadium, will be a series of on-field events where participants will be tested on strength, speed and throwing accuracy.

Former Arkansas quarterback Jason Allen, who created the quarterback challenge six years ago, said this year’s event should be exciting.

Last year’s winner, Springdale High’s Ashton Glaser, passed for 3,069 yards and 29 touchdowns for the Red’Dogs last fall and is now a freshman quarterback at Missouri.

“We’ve got a lot of talented guys out here, guys that are capable of scoring a lot of points,” Allen said. “It should be a fun competition for anyone who decides to come out. It’ll be a great way to get a football fix in the middle of July.”

Besides the 15 quarterbacks that were invited to compete, there are also five vacant spots that were left available this year for any quarterback that wanted to qualify for the competition.

The five quarterbacks that qualified on Wednesday morning are Clarksville’s Trey Schucker, Camden Fairview’s Brandon Keaton, Wynne’s Grant Smith, Springdale High’s Chris Clinard and Timberland’s (Mo.) Chase Cresong.

“We’ve had a lot of talented quarterbacks in this competition before, and I can tell we’ve got several again this year,” Allen said. “My guess is that it’ll be a really close result.”

SPRINGDALE — So much for a postseason hangover. Shiloh Christian, playing its first playoff game since last December’s heartbreaking state championship loss, the Saints crushed Clarksville 84-14 on Friday in Champions Stadium in a Class 4A second round playoff game.

FAYETTEVILLE — Clarksville coach Michael Banning knows exactly what’s at stake tonight.

“You know, every year the kids ask if we’ve seen the magazine and seen who is playing in the Hooten’s Classic,” Greenland coach Tracy Sutton said. “They’ve played at Conway before, at UCA and just having it up here is awesome. The kids, that’s all they talked about when they found out.

“Just to see the gleam in their eyes, you can tell they’re just tickled to death. And it’s pretty exciting for a coach, too, I’m not going to lie. It’s just an exciting feeling to know that stadium is going to be packed and there’s no other atmosphere like that for those kids to experience. That’s just a great feeling for those kids.”

Event organizers look for a college-type stadium when choosing the venues for the Hootens.com Kickoff Week. And with Bentonville’s Tiger Stadium living up to those standards, now seemed to be the ideal time to bring the event to Northwest Arkansas.

“We’ve had the Northwest Arkansas teams, we just haven’t had an event here,” Hooten said. “And really we like to hold this in a small college-type stadium and there hasn’t been one available up here. But now Bentonville is like a college stadium and it makes it perfect for something like this.

“So we hope we can fill the stands and have an overflow crowd.”

The Greenland-West Fork and Gravette-Clarksville games will be the second of Hooten’s three doubleheaders this year. On Sept. 1, Monticello will face Vilonia and Lonoke will take on Dumas at the University of Arkansas-Pine Bluff. Then on Sept. 3, the event will wrap up with a final doubleheader at Harding University in Searcy with Hoxie and Heber Springs playing one game, while the second game at Harding will be determined at a later date.

“I think this is extremely important (having the event come to Northwest Arkansas),” West Fork coach Rodney Selph said. “You get the magazine every year and you always can’t wait for the Hooten’s Magazine to come out. And we’ve read about the Hooten’s Kickoff Classic every year and we see those teams that play in it.

“Now we’re one of those teams, and for our kids it’s an outstanding opportunity and we can’t wait.”