Photos by Rick Nation and Kevin Nagle
While it was important for both the Bryant Hornets and the Little Rock Catholic Rockets to win their 7A/6A-Central Conference openers last week, they each face a doubly important league game tonight.
That’s because, while the games against Russellville and Alma respectively, count towards winning a conference championship, neither matters when it comes to seeding for the Class 7A State playoffs for the Hornets and Rockets. Russellville and Alma are among those that make up the 6A part of the Central.
The way things are set up this year, only games against 7A foes count toward playoff seeding for the 7A teams in the league. And with four 7A member teams (Van Buren and Conway along with Catholic and Bryant), that means there are three games on which a whole lot hinges. In addition, only three of the four will advance to State, one will be left out.
So when the Rockets host the Hornets tonight at War Memorial Stadium, there will be a lot on the line.
Bryant has a little extra incentive too: Payback for the 2013 game. Bryant came into that game off an impressive 28-14 win at Little Rock Central, bouncing back from a season-opening 24-7 season-opening loss to Conway. The Rockets, meanwhile, had struggled through their first two games, losing both including a 38-14 loss to the same Central team the Hornets had thumped.
Bryant managed a 19-17 halftime lead but Catholic dominated the second half, outscoring the Hornets 20-0 to stun them, 37-19.
The loss dropped Bryant to 1-2, the worst start to a season for a Hornets team since the 1996 team went 0-3.
No doubt, the Hornets have been reminded of that game plenty this week.
“Every day,” acknowledged Bryant head coach Paul Calley.
“They have a really good scheme on defense for what we like to do,” he noted. “Last year, we hit some big plays but when we really needed it, we couldn’t move the ball. And they kept it away from us. I think we only had 19 plays, maybe 16 plays in the second half. You can’t win football games doing that.”
“We’re up against a well-coached, hard-nosed team,” said Hornets offensive coordinator Lance Parker. “They’re a double-eagle team (on defense). They like to play kind of a 3-4 and really try to cause a lot of chaos with those three down guys in the middle. The ‘backers flow real hard.”
“We think we have a good game plan going in,” Calley added.
Bryant struggled to move the ball early against Russellville.
“It didn’t necessarily go according to plan last week but I thought, as far as the critical plays in the game, I was really proud that we were able to get off the game plan — some of those scoring plays were not necessarily practiced,” Parker related. “We just kind of had to draw them in the dirt. Our players did a great job of making adjustments on the fly and I thought that was the thing I was most pleased with. I was hoping we would run-block, be a little bit more dominant up front than we were. But I was pleased with how we adjusted.”
The Rockets’ defense held high-flying North Little Rock to just 17 points in their season-opener. Though they surrendered 62 to Cabot the next week, they got by Little Rock Parkview then held Alma to just 6 points. The Airedales came into the contest averaging over 36 points a game in non-conference.
Regarding the offense, Calley said, “We know they’ve got a really good quarterback. They’re offensive line is big and experienced. And they have a really good receiver they’re going to try to get the ball to. We’ve got to be able to defend him.”
The quarterback is 6-3 junior Andre Sale. The line is led by Luc Bequette, a 6-2, 281-pound center who continues his family’s legacy. The wide receiver is 6-6 Trey Purifoy. The Rockets have a quality running back in Lance Harville-Thomas as well.
“Catholic looks similar in some ways to Russellville in that they’ll line up in some pro-sets, some tight end-two back sets and pound the football,” said Hornets defensive coordinator Steve Griffith. “But they also spread the field. I think, overall, their passing game is better than Russellville’s. The quarterback does a good job distributing the football and they’ve got a couple of receivers that give us some match-up problems. So we’re going to have to do a good job of getting our help coverage, making sure we have situations where we can try to get a safety or linebacker to help on their bigger outside receivers.
“Then, one of the big keys is we’ve got to get pressure up front,” he continued. “Whether we’re in our four front or our three front bringing stunts, we’ve got to get some pressure so he can’t sit back there four seconds and turn it into a 7-on-7 competition. We saw them this summer in 7-on-7 and he was very effective throwing the football.”
The Hornets limited Russellville’s running game to 47 yards, though Michael Mullin, the Cyclones’ quarterback was able to complete 25 of 34 passes for 254 yards.
“We got a lot of good work out of our 3-4 package,” Griffith said. “We did a good job against the running game. We’re still making a few mental mistakes that allowed Russellville to have some big plays. We’ve got to continue to work to try to eliminate those mental mistakes and eliminate those big plays and do a better job of controlling field position.
“I was proud of the fact that we forced some punts and gave ourselves a chance to block one,” he added. “The big swing in the ballgame was when Hunter Fugitt blocked the punt and (Steven) Murdock scooped and scored.
“Those are things that you’ve got to be able to do to get that opportunity,” the coach noted. “You have to play good defense. It all combines together. We’ve got to get off the field on third down more effectively. If we do, hopefully, we can put some pressure on and give our offense some good field position.”
Special teams were huge for the Hornets against Russellville. They blocked an extra point, a field goal and a punt. In addition, senior kicker booted two long field goals and pushed the Cyclones deep on his kickoffs with three for touchbacks.
“Special teams, I’ve been preaching to our guys, are huge when you get into conference play,” Calley related. “We proved it last week. Hopefully, they’ll start believing me. You know, we have been attentive but I don’t think we’ve been attentive enough. It can swing the momentum of the game in a hurry.”
