Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: What's up, everybody? Welcome back to the Prep Rally Podcast your go to huddle for high school sports action in Northwest Arkansas and the River Valley.
[00:00:08] Speaker B: We've got the highlights, the hype, and of course, our gimme five and top five where we count down the top athletes of the week for the Northwest Arkansas and River Valley Democrat Gazette.
[00:00:19] Speaker A: Whether you're listening on the way to practice or sitting in the stands, we've got something for every high school sports fan. Let's kick it off with this week's biggest wins and wildest finish as we reel it back.
Hi, I'm Sydney Ruth Mulvanen. Welcome back to the Prep Rally Podcast. I'm here with Graham Thomas of Northwest Arkansas and. And Leland Barclay of the River Valley. All right, guys, so let's talk about the biggest wins and the wildest finishes.
[00:01:01] Speaker B: Well, I mean, it has to start where you guys were at, right? Greenwood and Bentonville West. What a. What a showdown that was. Sydney, I can't wait to hear your take on this.
[00:01:10] Speaker A: I mean, the whole crew and I were down there and we were holding our breath. It was a battle to the finish and it was. I mean, touchdown after touchdown.
It was. It was impressive on both sides. I mean, you had talked about Greenwood's defense and how it's a pretty new defense this year. And I mean, Bentonville west has a lot of veterans on their offense and so they really took advantage to that towards the beginning.
At the end, it was wild finish. But I think it just shows the testament of Bentonville west and that they can compete against anybody.
[00:01:43] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. I mean, if you can compete with Greenwood, take them down to the wire at their Smith Robinson Stadium and have a chance to win. Yeah, you can compete with anybody in the state. So I'll look forward to seeing how Bentonville west fares. You know, great, great battle down there. You know, great win for Greenwood. They had to play a full court of Leland. We talked about it. We thought, you know, Greenwood would probably have to play a full game, which has not been the norm the last few years.
[00:02:10] Speaker A: And I will say, y', all, I did pick Bentonville west on the show, so, I mean, they were close. It was a 35 to 31 win for Greenwood, but they were close.
[00:02:20] Speaker B: Leland, what'd you hear about this one?
[00:02:23] Speaker C: Well, of course, it was 28, 28 at the half. You know, we talk about offenses in both of these teams. I think it's safe to say they have prolific offenses, especially with Trey Thompson, very versatile. He threw for 123 in a touchdown, ran for 97 yards in a touchdown.
But really it came down to the to defense in the second half, especially at the very end. The there was only one touchdown scored in this game in the second half. Greenwood made a defensive stand right at the end to win this game. And I think it's also safe to say that Greenwood's defense maybe grew up a little bit or maybe a lot on Friday night with that defensive stand to keep their home winning streak going at 71 straight games, Kane Archer, the senior quarterback for Greenwood, improved to 27. 0 as a starter.
So a big test for them on Friday night and now they'll hit the road to the north side.
[00:03:18] Speaker A: And the last thing I'll mention with this is we actually have a post game interview with coach Young of Greenwood which we will show on the show here.
[00:03:26] Speaker D: And in some of those pressure situations, what do you tell your athletes on the sideline?
[00:03:30] Speaker E: Yeah, you know, we haven't gone through a lot of adversity here. When you win 26 in a row, we haven't had a game like that in a long time. And so, you know, you kind of wait to see how the guys are going to respond and we challenge them.
We're real proud of how they played the first half, especially defensively. We challenged them at halftime and they came out and played awesome. I think they gave up three points in the second half. Got a big stuff down there. So really proud of them. We played a lot of young guys tonight and we don't do that around here very often. It's going to benefit us in the future, but we're worried about right now, so hopefully we'll see some improvement in those young guys each game this season.
[00:04:01] Speaker D: And moving forward, how would you say you're a team?
[00:04:04] Speaker E: Yeah, I think just carrying over what they were able to do in the second half. You know, our coaches made some great adjustments at halftime and then our kids came out and executed. I could just see a change in the way our kids were playing. You could tell that they had a little bit more in them and we're a little bit more excited to be out there. I think in the first half, Fit west looked the most excited to be here and I thought they changed in the second half.
[00:04:23] Speaker D: I mean, with such a high pressured game to start off the season, do you guys think that your momentum will just increase from here?
[00:04:28] Speaker E: Yeah, you know, that's going to help us. Like you said, going through that adversity and, you know, it points out some weak spots because when things aren't going good, you can see who's going to step up and who's going to back up. And we had some kids step up now. We had some sophomores play really well, make some big plays, and, you know, we can build our stuff around those guys.
[00:04:44] Speaker D: And who are some of those names that you talk about?
[00:04:46] Speaker E: Yeah, Braxton, Canada. I thought he was really good. Wide receiver, sophomore, playing his first game tonight. Made a couple touchdowns. I thought he was really good. Briar Hackler, started linebacker. Drew Dickinson, outside linebacker, playing with rope drift tonight. Had it clubbed up. He was a sophomore. Flying all over the field. Gunner Flannery was a sophomore that was out there. Jackson Cepeda, our right tackle, played the whole game. So I think there were six sophomores who played a lot of minutes tonight and did really well. And so those guys will continue to get better.
[00:05:15] Speaker A: Another thing, too is he had a lot of younger guys step up.
One of them, including Braxton, Canada. I mean, so he had a lot of young guys kind of step into those pivotal roles, and you would have. You would have never known. So that was. That was impressive to see younger guys kind of stepping up on that team.
[00:05:31] Speaker B: Braxton, Canada was one of Leland's. Give me five younger players to watch from earlier last month and some of the publications that we did. So, Leland, let's. Let's move on to the Battle of the Bone. Just give you a little bit about what you've garnered from that. I know you weren't there, but, you know, you hear about it and you read the stories and. And then from there, take us to the Battle of Rogers Avenue and we'll wrap. Wrap up rivalry week.
[00:06:01] Speaker C: The Battle of the Bone. Of course, for the second year in a row, Van Buren made a defensive touchdown at the very end of the game to kind of clinch it. It was a close game going into that final possession for Allen. Both last year and this year, of course, they, you know, they got the defensive touchdown to wrap up a 40 to 29 win.
Van Buren again rallied. Alma led after three quarters in this game. Van Buren scored three touchdowns in the fourth quarter to win that game.
Hayden Williford was outstanding at quarterback. 206 yards and three touchdowns passing. Hayden Christenberry, the sophomore who got called up to varsity, got a few carries last year. At the end of the year, including the playoffs, 34 carries, 226 yards.
However, Van Buren, six turnovers in this game and still one. Now, that was offset a little bit by four turnovers by Alma. So 10 turnovers altogether in this game.
And Alma prevailed Or Van Buren prevailed in this one to win their third straight battle of the bone. The battle of Rogers Avenue was kind of like. I think we thought it would be Southside 127 to 7. But in this game there was only one touchdown scored in the first half. So north side's defense was outstanding. Gave up one touchdown, two field goals in the first half. But Southside kind of put this game away with two early touchdowns in the fourth quarter.
This game was marked 15 punts in this game.
Lead by 8 by south side, 7 by north side.
There were actually 15 possessions by each team in this game, 30 possessions, 15 of which ended in punts. And I think it was eight of those ended up being three and out. So it was kind of a defensive game.
But what Southside started, eight seniors on each side of the ball. That was really the difference in this game.
[00:08:04] Speaker B: Yeah, that punt statistic, you can only get that from Leland Barclay.
[00:08:07] Speaker A: You Exactly.
[00:08:08] Speaker B: We're.
[00:08:08] Speaker A: We're thankful you're our in house almanac.
[00:08:11] Speaker B: Well so.
[00:08:12] Speaker C: And I know talking about puns probably isn't real exciting.
[00:08:17] Speaker A: Oh no, I love it.
[00:08:19] Speaker B: So movement moving the back up to northwest Arkansas. We had several games that are kind of worth mentioning. Cabot and Fayetteville were in a battle early and then Fayetteville just piled up the offense, set a school record with 691 yards of offense and beat Cabot. Hank Hendricks, a big night. We're going to get into some of that later with a lot of his teammates had big nights too.
We were anxious to see what Springdale harbor would do with Broken Arrow.
And harbor battled but Broken Arrow got the better of them.
I was at North Little Rock at Rodgers. Brad Bouldings returned to North Little Rock. A lot of statewide interest in that move, but boy, Rogers was just too good for them. Some exciting plays.
Rogers had four 15 yard penalties in the very first quarter and early part of the second quarter really kind of got them a little bit delayed. But once they got going, they were really good.
You know, Asylum Spring. Odd, odd occurrence at Silo Springs or Rogers Heritage. Siloam was up 21 to 0.
Then they had some light problems at Panther Stadium and they couldn't finish even the half.
We don't know where that one stands. Siloam was up 210 as that game was called.
And then the one that may have been the most exciting game of the the ones up in northwest Arkansas, Farmington with a 43 to 42 win over Edmond, Oklahoma North. Our guy Rick Fires was there just a lot of Offense, Aiden Lester and his guys at Farmington, a lot of weapons. They win the ball game. So. So I know that's kind of a quick hitter on a lot of different games in this area.
I mean, you know, we could probably spend a whole podcast talking about every one of them. They were, you know, I will say.
[00:10:06] Speaker A: My highlight is definitely that Braxton Lindsay touchdown to Jeff Regan or that 50 yarder to him.
[00:10:13] Speaker B: Yeah. What's funny is, you know, I talked to Chad Harvest. We got to see that some more. He goes, oh, I don't know.
[00:10:20] Speaker A: No, I mean. And I messaged, we have a group text for our show. And I, I texted in there and before the season even started, I saw on the sheet that they had Jeff Regan as a wide receiver. And I said, that can't be correct. So I guess. I guess they, they did end up using him as a receiver.
[00:10:37] Speaker B: Well, I tell you what, we've got video of it. Why don't we just play it right now, wide open, just out running and he goes fast.
You know, Regan comes across the the field and then kind of turns up field and nobody followed him. It's just a great design by the Rogers staff. And Lindsay threw just a dime and dropped it in the bucket, so to speak.
[00:11:08] Speaker A: I had my suspicions that, you know, they were going to use him as a receiver. I mean, their bond at media day, I could, I could tell something was coming.
[00:11:15] Speaker B: Well, and I was just fortunate enough to get that one on film. I'm, you know, if he. Anyone will tell you, you know, I sometimes I'll film the incomplete passes and miss the touchdowns. So, you know, but, you know, it was exciting first week and we had a lot of great coverage in the River Valley Democrat Gazette and in northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette. So success week one.
Or excuse me, success week zero.
We're on to week one.
[00:11:43] Speaker A: All right. I think that's a good segue into our sponsor of the show, which is West Termite. Take control of your pests with West. Whether it's termites, mosquitoes, bed bugs, weeds, or lawn disease, Wes has the experience serving Arkansas, Missouri and Oklahoma since 2003. Book your free consultation online today at westtermite.com after all, Wes knows pests best.
[00:12:05] Speaker B: You do that really well, by the way. Wes knows pests best. Thank you. That's a tough one right there.
[00:12:11] Speaker A: All right. But when we come back, we will be making predictions about the upcoming matches. Stay tuned.
Welcome back to the Prep rally podcast. We are going to get into our upcoming matches and predictions. Boys, take it away.
[00:12:27] Speaker B: All right. So Leland, as always, there's a lot of good games in the River Valley this week, but what do you have your eye on?
[00:12:35] Speaker C: Well, we're going to keep it in Crawford County. The battle for the treasure chest trophy. Mountainburg at Cedarville.
Big, big battle in northern Crawford county between these two long time rivals that goes back into the early 80s.
That's the biggest game in the River Valley this week is another rivalry game along with Boonville at Ozark, which is another rivalry game. And it's, it's a little unusual. Ozark plays three rivals, long time rivals. This is number two out of three. They won last week against Clarksville for the. They met for the 98th time.
So Boonville at Ozark, another big one.
[00:13:15] Speaker B: Okay, well, I know Southside's office week. Northside and Greenwood play Siloam Springs at Alma. I mean, we can just kind of go down the list. There is a lot of good options to choose from. How about up here? Broken Arrows making the trip back over to northwest Arkansas to take on the Fayetteville Bulldogs at Harmon Field.
Little Rock Christian is making the trip up to Shiloh Christian.
And both those teams are playing their season openers. They didn't play in week zero.
And just the absolute titanic matchup that everybody in the state's going to have their eye on. Conway at Bentonville, a rematch of the semifinals from last year.
And you know, I.
That's just going to be a great ball game. It was a great ball game the last two years. A great ball game in the semifinals, which Bentonville won last year.
And I tell you what, you know, I wish I could be at every one of these that we mentioned. That would be just a lot of fun.
[00:14:20] Speaker A: There's nothing I love more than seeing those top final matchups that you see at the end of the season at the beginning.
[00:14:26] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:14:27] Speaker A: I just love it. It's like football is here.
[00:14:29] Speaker B: Yep. And to kind of give you an example of that, Sidney, last year Conway kind of pulled away from Bentonville and beat him pretty bad in the regular season at Conway. Bentonville turns the tables and beats them in the. In the semifinals. So just because you lose this one doesn't mean you know that all's all said and done.
[00:14:48] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:14:49] Speaker B: So let's do some. Who you got?
Who you got? We got five games to do this this week.
So let's start it off in the River Valley. Leland. Just a reference that earlier. Boonville at Ozark, Leland, who you got?
[00:15:05] Speaker C: You know, Boonville was shut out last week at Ponto, Oklahoma. Class 4A school. A very good team. A lot of tradition there. Boonville committed four turnovers in the first half. I do think they get that corrected. But from what I understand, there's there were several injuries in that game and Ozark evidently looked very good last week. 323 yards rushing.
A very physical Ozark team. I like Ozark in this one. To win at home in another rivalry game.
[00:15:36] Speaker B: Sydney, you giving us a pick on this one?
[00:15:38] Speaker A: I'm going to go with Ozark.
[00:15:40] Speaker B: You know what? I'm going to go with Ozark too. Just very impressive. I think Boonville is going to be a really good team. They may just got to get their feet under them a little bit. I did not expect them to get shut out by Podo. That was a little bit surprising. All right, so Siloam Springs at Alma. Doug Lockridge makes his return to to Alma as the football coach at Salem Springs. You know, he was the head coach at Alma and the AD at Alma and he was at Charleston.
Really successful. They've got a good team at Silo Springs.
I tell you what, I'm going to. I'm going to ride with Siloam Springs here.
[00:16:13] Speaker A: Leland, biased?
[00:16:15] Speaker B: Well, you know, I do have a cheerleader on the, on the team there, so I just think that I got to watch Silent Springs against Heritage on the film and they, they look like they're a hungry football team. I'm going to go with the Panthers. Sydney, who you got?
[00:16:29] Speaker A: I'm going to go with Alma in this one.
[00:16:31] Speaker B: Leland, who you got?
[00:16:32] Speaker C: You know, I'm tempted to go with Silent Springs because since you have a cheerleader there, I'm thinking that maybe you have a little bit of inside information about.
[00:16:41] Speaker A: No, don't let him tempt you, Leland. That's not true.
[00:16:44] Speaker C: I'm not. Oh, I'm not. I'm not easily influenced. But since you know, Titus Benson is going to be very good freshman quarterback, went to some big time camps this summer. He's going to be really good. But.
And last week's half allowed him to kind of get his feet wet and get used to Friday night lights. I think Alma still corrects some things. Chase Parker looked very good in his first start at quarterback and how much. Samuel Slagel caught a touchdown, ran for a touchdown, threw a touchdown pass. I like Alma at home in this one.
[00:17:18] Speaker A: Ah, music to my ears. I knew he was going to come to my side.
[00:17:22] Speaker B: Sam Schlegel. You know, you talk about God's going to be circled on the scout report. He'll Be circled for sure. But I know Siloam's got some kids, too, that they're, you know, they're going to have certain that Alma will have circled as well. All right, real quick, Broken Arrow at Fayetteville.
How could you go against Fayetteville on this one? I'm taking Fayetteville. Who you got? Sydney?
Fable, Leland, who you got?
[00:17:47] Speaker C: I don't see Broken Arrow going. Coming to Northwest Arkansas two weeks and go in a row and going two zero. I like Fayetteville after that big offensive performance on Friday night to have another one this week.
[00:17:59] Speaker B: All right, two more left for a Little Rock Christian at Shiloh Christian.
[00:18:03] Speaker A: Sydney, I'm gonna go with Shiloh Christian.
[00:18:08] Speaker B: I will also go with Shiloh Christian, assuming, you know, Cole Creighton keeps his collarbone healthy this time. He's broken it two years in a row in this game. But I think he. I think he stays upright. Shiloh Christian wins, leaving who you got?
[00:18:22] Speaker C: I just think Little Rock Christian, these are going to be two of the best quarterbacks in the state going at it on Friday night. I just think Little Rock Christian may be have a little bit extra in this game, and I think. I think the warriors win.
[00:18:37] Speaker B: All right, while we got you here, Leland Conway at Bentonville. Man, who you got, Leland?
[00:18:44] Speaker C: Well, you know, this was before, you know, Conway last week had 728 yards of offense. Wesley tap through for 407 yards and three touchdowns. They had two running backs go over 100 yards. They had three receivers with over 100 yards receiving.
So they're a very good offensive team. But I have picked Bentonville number one in the state. I'm the lone holdout over Bryant in the Arkansas sports media poll. So I've got to pick Bentonville, and I have faith in them that they'll win this game.
[00:19:16] Speaker B: Let's be. Let's be real about this. Bentonville is not Jonesboro. Which Conway did that, too. So Bentonville at home.
Bentonville. I'm going Bentonville.
Sydney here we got.
[00:19:28] Speaker A: It was a battle last season. It's going to be a battle this season. This is the hardest pick of all of them, but I'm going to have to say Bentonville as well.
[00:19:36] Speaker B: Oh, man. Well, I hope we didn't give him the kiss of death. That usually what happens when we all go the same way. All right, so that's who you got. This week we will take a break and when we come back, we will reveal our Gimme 5 for the week.
[00:19:54] Speaker A: Welcome back to the Prep rally podcast.
Before we get into the gimme five and top five. We want to remind everyone that nwaonline.com and rivervalleydemocrat gazette.com are the premier spots to get all the latest news on high school sports. Additionally, you can follow us on Instagram and Facebook at preparally pod where we share exclusive interviews with players and a lot more fun things. So with that being said, let's get into the top five and gimme five.
[00:20:19] Speaker B: All right. And we're going to start with the gimme five in the River Valley Leland.
I can't wait. Let's do it.
[00:20:28] Speaker C: These are the top five performances in the River Valley from the last week out of many. But these are the top five. Number five, Jaden Warden of Eight Bureau and golfer shot a personal best 41 to win her second straight medalist honors last week at Ben Garon Park. Wednesday there at Alma.
Number four, we're going to go with girl power again. Ella Shelby, a Fort Smith Southside senior, recorded her 1,000th dig in the first set of a 31 win over harbor as Southside improved a 2. And oh, number three, Jasser Posey. I think we've heard that name before. Pecola quarterback started the season the way he left off last year in a 427 win at Antlers, 28 of 36 for 402 yards and four touchdowns. Number two, Matt Garner, another quarterback, a senior from hackett in a 39:13 win over Danville, threw for 311 yards and five touchdowns. Also ran for the other touchdown in the game. And number one, we always go with our River Valley Democratic is that player of the week. Senior receiver Austin Riggs of Van Buren in a 40 to 29 win over Van over Alma. Three catches, 116 yards and two touchdowns of 53 and 48 yards.
And of that 116 receiving yards, 106 of it was after the catch in some dazzling moves.
In fact, he kind of some of those moves kind of reminded me of the B button in NCAA football in Xbox.
[00:22:10] Speaker B: What a reference. I'm impressed. You know that one.
Actually Leland is quite the Leland's young at heart. He's quite the video game guy. I never knew this until just recently when I hear about him going to Dave and Busters. So how about that?
You know what's impressive too about that list of all those River Valley gimme fives, not one of them is from Northside, Southside or Greenwood.
So that just shows you a lot of a lot of great performances there. And you know, because typically we're going to have you know Kane Archer on the list. We almost called it the Kane Archer. Gimme five. Right. And the Jeff Regan top five, but okay, so let's do the top five in northwest Arkansas.
Number five. I'm going to take us over to Lincoln, Little Lincoln, Arkansas in Washington county where Tucker Odom returned two punts for touchdowns and also ran for a score as the wolves beat Greenland 26 to 25 on opening night.
Number four, Cole Slopecki of Bentonville. This is a tough thing to do. Now, Sidney, he goes over to Tulsa Union and it's not his first start that he's ever made. He made a start against Rogers two years ago as a sophomore and won that game. But going over to Tulsa Union, he threw for 234 yards and two touchdowns. And Bentonville gets a big, big win on the road.
Got a big game of Conway this week, so we'll see how Mr. Slopecki does in that one.
Jeff Regan, he threw two touchdown passes. He ran for a touchdown and received one. That's the trifecta. Sam Schlegel did the same thing and just really hard thing to do in a football game. But what a night he had and just a great, great athlete. Jeff Regan. Speaking of great athletes, man, Fayetteville is just. They are loaded. Fayetteville weapons is my number two for, for top five. We're going to start with Hank Hendricks. 471 yards passing, 691 yards of offense and school record. How about the twin brothers Caleb and Kenyon Johnson?
Caleb had 123 rushing yards on 12 carries and three touchdowns.
Kenyon caught four passes for 143 yards and a touchdown.
And we can't forget our guy. Katavian Taylor.
Six receptions for 155 yards and a touchdown.
So a lot of options there for Fayetteville offensive coordinator Valarvich.
And so that leads us to our number one. It's our Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette player of the week, Brady Richards of Farmington. This guy caught 13 passes for 199 yards, two touchdowns in Farmington's 43 to 42 win over Edmond, Oklahoma North Leland, I fully expect you go back and stat that game to make sure it's 199 and not 200.
But it's kind of like with Braxton Lindsey there night, he had 99 receiving yards. And I said, I asked the Rogers stack keeper, I said that's what I had him for. Did y' all have for 99? Yep, that's what we had him for. So 99 is 99, but 199 is 199. What a great night.
So that wraps up our top five of the week.
Very difficult to make these choices. I'm telling you, every week it's a challenge.
[00:25:35] Speaker A: All right, that was good, y'. All. Well, we will see you next week on our show, on our regular scheduled show on Monday. But this is Prep Rally. Thanks for joining us.
