By RAY BENTON
Leader sports editor
The Beebe football team has to find a way to bounce back from a second-half drubbing by Wynne last week, but motivation shouldn’t be a problem.
After two weeks of stellar second halves and come-from-behind victories, the Badgers were outscored 21-0 in the second half of last Friday’s 35-14 loss to the Yellowjackets.
But there’s no time to be dejected. The Badgers now have their 5A-Central Conference opener on the road in front of them, and it’s a big one right off the bat.
The Badgers travel to Little Rock Christian Academy to take on a Warrior squad that got a lot better with the addition of several juniors that didn’t play as sophomores.
When this year’s juniors were freshmen, LRCA was the only team to beat Beebe, and itwas quarterback Justice Hill that did most of the damage.
He quit football last season, but has returned, and has made an immediate impact.
Beebe coaches knew a slow start against a team as good as Wynne might dig a hole too deep to get out of, and the team responded to the urgency.
“We preached all week about getting off to a better start than we had been,” Beebe coach John Shannon said. “I guess we need to clarify that that doesn’t mean taking the second half off. But really I don’t think that was it. They made some adjustments at halftime and we didn’t handle it well. Really it came down to the fact that they were bigger, stronger and faster than we were. But we also helped them out a little bit with some mistakes that we’re going to go to work on.”
The Badgers shouldn’t have any trouble getting motivated for the Warriors. The players and coaches look to this matchup last season as the one primarily responsible for keeping them out of the playoffs for the first time in 10 years.
Beebe blew three scoring opportunities and lost by 11 points. While the Badgers appear to be much better than last season, so are the Warriors. LRCA is 3-0 and averaging 43.7 points per game. The Warriors have wins over two juggernauts from lower classifications, including 43-28 over Warren and 40-20 over Shiloh Christian. Last week they beat Harrison in a wild one, 48-41.
SC and Warren don’t play a style of ball anything like Beebe, but the Harrison game gives Shannon some encouragement.
“They got in the I formation and ran right at them,” Shannon said of Harrison. “They would also get in the spread and run some of the same plays we run. So it was encouraging from that standpoint. If we can take care of the ball and not turn it over, I feel like we have a chance to keep that high-powered offense off the field. Harrison had about 500 yards on them.”
Much like last year, this game could go a long way towards determining not just playoff seedings, but a playoff berth. The 5A Central has been the strongest conference in recent years, so at least a couple of good teams have been left at home for the postseason. Beebe wants to make sure it’s not them again this year, and it has had this game circled since the end of last season.
“The way it unfolded last year, with the three teams that were above us, we felt like if we had a chance to go to the playoffs, we should’ve beat Christian,” Shannon said. “When you have the ball on the goal line three times and don’t score, it leaves a bad taste. We’ve been looking at this one a long time and we feel like we’re better than we were last year. But they have a better team also, so it’s going to be a big test.”