By Jason Avery
News-Times Staff
EL DORADO - On the surface, it would seem at first glance that some of the original luster from tonight’s clash between Union County rivals Junction City and Smackover has faded some.
Smackover saw its five-game winning streak and 18-game conference winning streak dating back to 2013 snapped at Fordyce last week, while Junction City has labored to put away Genoa Central, Fouke and Lake Village in the past three weeks.
However, there is plenty at stake for both teams.
A victory for the Bucks (5-2, 3-1) would put them back in contention for a league championship.
Despite their ups and downs over the last three weeks, a win for the Dragons (5-2, 4-0) sets up a showdown against Fordyce next week in Junction City for the conference title.
And of course, there is always playoff seeding.
The league champion not only gets a first-round bye, but also home-field advantage throughout the playoffs, while the No. 2 and 3 seeds could face road trips to league champions in the second round.
With so much at stake and both schools having been up and down, it’s anybody’s guess as to what to expect tonight, but Smackover coach Brian Strickland believes the rekindled rivalry will bring out the best in both teams.
“It’s county, and we should be playing Junction City,” Strickland said. “It’s good. The kids know each other. We’ve had some good battles the last couple of years. It’s just good high school football and two teams that get after each other and respect each other. You can’t say any more. It’s just good high school football.”
Relying on a plethora of underclassmen has led to some growing pains for the Dragons, but coach David Carpenter believes the experience will be a great benefit to his team.
“It’s a young team trying to find its way right now,” Carpenter said. “We don’t have many seniors on this club, so we have a lot of younger guys out with us, and that presents different challenges within itself there. They’re getting better at it, and that’s the thing that’s going to work out for us in the long run.
“We’re a tale of two different teams at times. We’ll do real well, and then we’ll have several mistakes that will put us in a bind. The last couple of weeks, we’ve worked out a lot of the penalty problems we were having, so we feel a lot better about that. We’re getting things ironed out.
“We’re getting some guys back that have been injured, and that helps us out with our depth. When you lose a couple of guys, you lose several spots with those guys. It’s not just an offensive player or a defensive player, it’s also special teams.
“It helps us with our depth because a lot of guys are getting a lot of time that they normally wouldn’t have. Now with these guys coming back, we’re able to rotate more players in because we have more experience in there than what we had.”
Little went right for the Bucks in last week’s 26-0 loss at Fordyce.
The Bucks had only 125 yards of total offense in the win, and Strickland said it would be imperative for his team to move on and focus on the Dragons.
“That’s last week, and this is a new week,” Strickland said. “We’ve got to put that one behind us. Sometimes losses are good. I think it woke some of them up that we can be beat. We had been on a little run, but we didn’t play very well last week. I didn’t feel like we competed very hard. That was a big disappointment. They came back to work on Monday, and we’ve had some excellent days of practice. They’re ready to get started on another streak.”
After their season-opening loss to Harmony Grove, the Bucks went back to the drawing board and put together an impressive five-game winning streak where they outscored their opponents 211-54, but Strickland doesn’t believe the situation is the same as it was in Week 1.
“It’s not back to the drawing board,” Strickland said. “We’ve got to do some things a lot better than what we did last Friday night. It’s not something that just happened in one week, we’ve been working on some things for a few weeks. It’s just when you play a good team, it sometimes comes to bite you in the rear end when you don’t do things right, you’re not ready to play and you don’t compete. That’s what happened last Friday night.”
Having a younger team has meant more on-the-job training for the Dragons rather than having the luxury of being able to learn and develop on a steadier curve.
“When you have clubs like we’ve had in the past with 15 up to 23 seniors, those type of teams that have come up and played through a lot and know a lot where they can teach the younger guys about what’s going on,” Carpenter said.
“With us only having a few in there, you’re having to use a lot of younger guys which you normally don’t, so they’re learning and the younger guys are getting better with what they do each week where normally they would just have time to learn all that in practice when we do our drill work.
“We’re doing the drill work that we do when we have a lot of seniors and when we don’t have a lot of seniors, but they get a lot more reps and drills than they normally would, and they’re having to learn all of that as they play.”
One area of strength for both squads is in the backfield.
Junior Hishmma Taylor spearheaded the Dragons’ comeback victory last week over Lake Village with 200 yards and two touchdowns on 14 carries, and although the Bucks were shut out last week, senior Michael Edwards also had 200 yards against the Beavers three weeks ago.
Both coaches agreed that their defenses will have their hands full.
“It’s a big challenge,” said Carpenter, who can pass former Malvern coach David Alpe for 10th place for most wins in state history tonight. “One of their backs is averaging over seven yards a touch, and they do a great job of blocking for each other. We’re going to have to pay attention to what’s going on and our business and do the correct things.”
Strickland said the Dragons’ speed will be a tall order for his defense.
“They’ve got so much speed, and they’ve got so many weapons, especially when they get the ball in space,” Strickland said. “They do so many things and have so many weapons. It’s hard for you to key on one thing. They do so many good things. They’re going to be tough to handle.”
Given the importance of the running game for both squads, Carpenter said who wins the battle in the trenches will likely come out on top.
“Always,” Carpenter said. “It doesn’t matter if you have teams that just throw the ball or teams that predominantly run with the football, it’s all won up there on the front seven on both sides. Those guys don’t get all of the hype and credit that they deserve because you just look and see all of the outside-type guys, but those down in the middle of it are the ones that win ballgames for you.”
When asked what he thought the keys for his team would be, Carpenter said the Dragons must continue to cut down on mistakes.
“In the last few weeks, we’ve just got to eliminate the mistakes we have made,” Carpenter said. “Hopefully, we will continue on that little path that we’re getting better at that. That’s what we have to do on the offensive side. On the defensive side, we have to make sure that we read all of our keys and see what’s going on and take care of our jobs.”
For the Bucks, Strickland said his team must be ready when the bell rings.
“At seven o’clock on Friday night, we’ve got to be ready to compete, which we weren’t last week,” Strickland said. “We’ve got to be ready to compete. We still have a lot to play for in this conference. Again, it’s one of seven. You’ve got seven conference games, and you need to win the majority of them. We’ve got to protect the football. We’ve got to move the football a whole lot better than what we did last Friday night.
“Defensively, we’ve got to tackle. We didn’t tackle last Friday night. We ran around guys and tried to arm tackle. We can’t do that this week. We’ve got to get after folks and try to get some pressure on them. When we get the football, we’ve got to score. We’ve got to sustain drives and keep it out of their hands. We can’t get caught up in Smackover-Junction, we need to realize it’s another football game and compete and play for four quarters and whatever happens, happens. That’s what I want to see. I want to see us compete for four quarters.”