PRAIRIE GROVE -- A late drive by Farmington halted as Prairie Grove dug in on defense to win the seventh grade 'Battle of 62' by a 20-16 score Thursday.
Prairie Grove coach Mason Pinkley said the game was rough around the edges, but the Tigers played good enough to win.
"We had minimal practice time with the seventh grade, we had four plays, what could we do?" Pinkley said. "We had some pretty good individual efforts. We did pretty good running the ball. Offensively, we've got to stay with our blocks but that's probably the case with everybody."
The Tigers led 20-8 at halftime on a 20-yard run by Marshal Prince that started inside before he broke outside and Gavin Butler's 20-yard sweep.
After Farmington scored on Charles Poole's 41-yard to paydirt and tacked on a 2-point conversion, Ethan Miller added a 70-yard touchdown run for Prairie Grove. A long run by Poole to the Tiger 31 fueled a Cardinal scoring drive in the third quarter. Farmington overcame a penalty that put them in second-and-goal from the 18 with Poole running over a tackler before he was brought down at the three.
On fourth-and-goal from the three, Sutter Thompson scored on a double reverse, then added a 2-point catch to pull the Cardinals within, 20-16, with 8:58 to play.
"We put that (reverse) in practice kind of for fun," said Farmington coach Spencer Adams. "They had been over-pursuing a lot so we ran it and it worked even though they had 12 guys on the field."
Prairie Grove reinserted their starting offense but a drive bogged down and they turned the ball over on downs at Farmington's 20 with two minutes remaining in the game.
Farmington tried to mount a drive, but the Tigers defense would have nothing of the sort. Even though he went the wrong way on a stunt, a supreme effort enabled Prince to cut down Farmington's Maddox Mahan on fourth-and-three to seal the Tiger win. Pinkley applauded Prince's determination to make a play.
"We had a stunt that hit the run gap. Our linebacker turned the wrong way and ran. They fly to the ball really well, that was a good stop."
He just went in the incorrect gap," Pinkley said. "It took an individual effort to go make the tackle to bail us out.
Sports on 09/06/2017