Prairie Grove cruises past Gravette
GRAVETTE — Prairie Grove will enter next week’s 4A- 1 Conference showdown with Shiloh Christian with an unblemished record after the Tigers outlasted a scrappy Gravette team down the stretch Friday night for a 44- 16 victory.
“Gravette came out ready to rock, and kind of caught us on our heels a little bit,” Prairie Grove coach Danny Abshier said. “I don’t think next week’s game had anything to do with tonight’s game. I think some of the games in the past had a little to do with this one.”
It was Prairie Grove’s ninth consecutive win against the Lions, dating to 2012, and Abshier knew that would give Gravette extra motivation.
The Tigers ( 5- 0, 2- 0) put the first points on the board less than two minutes into the game. Foster Layman ran for 27 yards on the first play then, three plays later, David Hall finished it off with a 30- yard touchdown run.
Gravette ( 1- 4, 0- 2) managed a nine- play drive to get the ball into Tiger territory on their opening possession, but on the tenth play, Jason Ticker picked off a Cy Hilger pass to halt the drive.
But revenge came quickly, as Hilger, a defensive back on defense, intercepted a Tiger pass five plays later.
The Tigers held the Lions to three- and- out, then got a 46- yard run on the next play to go up 14- 0 with 1 minute, 55 seconds to play in the first quarter.
Gravette followed that with a two-play drive that ended with a Hilger 79- yard bomb to the speedy Cordell Donell. Hilger ran in for the 2- point conversion to get within 14- 8.
Senior Mason Tucker led a stout Tiger defensive front that held Gravette to just 26 yards rushing on 29 carries.
“Running the ball was tough, and we knew that coming in,” Gravette coach Kelby Bohannon said. “Prairie Grove is really good at what they do, but we’ve got to continue to get better in that area of our game.”
The Tigers were able to rack up 288 yards on the ground, including Ethan Miller’s 17yard run to put Prairie Grove up 20- 8. Landon Semrad then capped the first- half scoring with a 26- yard scamper.
“We were able to run the ball pretty good tonight, but we struggled with our passing game,” Abshier said. “We tried to open our single- wing up some, but we just dropped a few of those passes tonight.”
Tiger quarterback Paytin Higgins completed 5 of 11 passes for just 33 yards.
Prairie Grove scored on the first three possessions of the second half, getting touchdown runs from Semrad and Higgins on a keeper. Higgins then booted a 27-yard field goal midway through the fourth quarter to complete the scoring.
Hilger completed 14 of 29 passes for 259 yards for
Gravette.
“We were able to move the ball at times, through the air,” Bohannon said.
“Cy Hilger is a senior, so we put a lot of faith in him, and he executed and made some big plays for us tonight.”
Four Downs
• The Tigers outgained the Lions in total offense, 321-285.
• The teams combined to turn the ball over on downs five times in the game.
• The Lions lead the alltime series between the two programs, 33-28.
• Next week, Prairie Grove travels to play Shiloh Christian, while Gravette hosts Huntsville.