By jason king
Leader sportswriter
The Beebe Badgers will face their longest road trip so far this season when they travel to Forrest City on Friday for the second week of the 5A-East Conference schedule.
The Badgers (1-3, 1-0) and the Mustangs (1-3, 1-0) may have identical records, but Forrest City, picked to finish second in the conference by Hooten’s Arkansas Football, finds itself behind the eight ball early after dropping its league opener 42-22 last week at Greene County Tech.
Beebe, on the other hand, weathered a three-game skid to start the season and picked up its first victory in grand fashion last week with a 60-14 trouncing of Paragould to begin conference play.
Now that Badgers are in the victory column, putting together a winning streak is the order for coach John Shannon.
“For our situation, one of the big things was ‘Hey, we can do this,’ but the more you lose, the more doubt sets in,” Shannon said. “When you win, it takes the pressure off and you can relax and go to the little things and try to correct some of those. It’s basically a big relief, and now, let’s go get another one.”
The Badgers ran over Paragould without senior quarterback Scot Gowen, who suffered an injury to his midsectionearly in the Vilonia game the previous week.
Defensive back Jordan Brockway filled in for Gowen last week, but Gowen returned to practice Monday.
Shannon was able to rest many of his starters early in last week’s game, and said he hoped avoiding some of the late-game wear and tear pays off in what could potentially be another physical matchup this week.
Forrest City has a mostly balanced, Pro-I offense but relies a little more on the running game. The Mustangs have an all-state tailback in senior Theodis Goodwin, 5-7, 195 pounds.
Goodwin runs the 40-yard dash in 4.5 seconds and carried for almost 1,300 yards his junior season.
Another senior, receiver and University of Arkansas recruit Daryon McKinney, has similar speed.
“They’re real athletic,” Shannon said. “They’ve got some speedsters at tailback and receiver, and we’ll have to contain their athleticism. They’re very beatable, but we’ll have to play as close to perfect as we can to have a chance.”
Two-way player Akeem Bogart is the defensive captain for the Mustangs, and heads up a stout corps of linebackers.
Shannon said there is also plenty of strength at the defensive line.
“They’ve got two pretty good size tackles and a good defensive end,” Shannon said. “I was also impressed with one of their inside linebackers. In the past, they’ve typically had good linebackers, and I expect it to be that way this time. I expect them to be aggressive and well coached.”
