The Pea Ridge Blackhawks hit a high water mark as they rose to the No. 4 ranking in the state before back to back losses dropped them to No. 7 among all 4A schools in the state.
Upsets in district competition pitted two teams (Pea Ridge and Pottsville) who were both ranked as the state’s No. 3 and No. 4 teams in back-to-back polling weeks, in an opening round match in region competition.
All first round winners got a ticket to the state 4A tournament with the losers headed home for the season.
As fate would have it, Pea Ridge lost the opening round game to Pottsville who started this week as the state’s number No. 2 ranked team after top ranked Monticello was upset earlier.
The game against Pottsville last Friday was competitive early before inaccurate passing and worse shooting helped get the Apaches rolling. 15 straight points by the Apaches in the second period proved to be the margin of victory.
Pottsville played their way into the North Region final Monday night after they turned back Lincoln in the semi-finals. Maumelle and Pottsville duked it out for the region championship Monday night at Subiaco with Lincoln and Booneville playing each other for the third and fourth state seeds.
While the ’Hawks may have had an abrupt ending to their 2012-2013 season, they still left their toils with 22 victories in their pocket, no mean feat. Since Charley Clarke’s arrival in Pea Ridge, Blackhawk teams have beenscrappy and generally successful.
While next year’s team will feel the shock of losing so many quality seniors, they will find a way to be competitive.
Gentry shocks region in girls’ basketball
Not that long ago, Pea Ridge girls avoided a winless conference season as they whipped Gentry. Since then, the Gentry girls have won for themselves a region runnerup trophy and a high berth in the state tournament.
A team that was one free throw away from upsetting the then state’s No. 1 team, and then beat the region’s second best team in the Pioneers, Pea Ridge’s Lady Blackhawks seemed at times to be close to becoming a competitive basketball team.
Maybe they can be the Gentry team of 2014.
Meanwhile Cinderella Gentry is still in the game, having at least one game to play before mothballing their clothes and gears. I firmly believed that any girls team in the 4A-1 conference had the stuff to beat any team in the 4A-4 and the Lady Pioneers proved me right, upsetting the 4A-4 champion Dover in the first round of action.
After whipping Farmington in semi-final action, they finally lost to Prairie Grove in a 60-52 final in a close battle which left them with a No. 2 seed going into the state tournament. The Lady Pioneers are 4-2 so far in post season play.
Is it me, or is ref-dom falling on hard times?
I am usually not one to fuss or complain, but it seemed to me this year that the qualityof referreeing has fallen on hard times recently at least in the basketball world. While I appreciate the jobs most referees do, there seem to be more and more who perform less than what the professional standards require.
There was one referee in particular, whom I referred to as “bad hair ref” due to the extraordinarily goshawful haircut he sported on most occasions. It seemed to me early on that he had something against Pea Ridge as he made any number of bad calls. In a recent district game, “Bad Hair Guy” blew his whistle most liberally against the ’Hawks. Although he was only one of three refs, this particular guy called six of the first eight fouls against Pea Ridge. I don’t recall that he called any against Pea Ridge’s opponents.
While I don’t believe that the average referee is trying to help a team, I have run across those who make me suspect that they were trying to influence the outcome of a game.
Look at all that dirt
Anyone driving by the high school practice field could not help but notice all the dirt that’s being pushed and plowed all over the incoming football field.
Talking to Andrea Ricketts the other day, I found out that the fill dirt being dumped all over the ground came from the McKinney family, a longtime Pea Ridge family. They sold the dirt to the school and they are busy right now getting the soil moved around.
While the new field may have an artificial field, it’s good to know that we will be having “down-home” dirt under everything.
I mean, really - what if the builders had brought in some inferior dirt from Missouri or some such place?
MaxPreps state 4A boys basketball poll
Feb. 18, 2013
1). Pine Bluff Dollarway
2). Pottsville
3). Monticello
4). Central Arkansas
5). Maumelle
6). Lonoke
7). Pea Ridge
8). Brookland
9). Farmington
10). Cave CIty
Other 4A-1 District schools
17). Gravette
21). Ozark
22). Lincoln
27). Berryville
35). Prairie Grove
48). Gentry
North Region Top 10 poll
1). Pottsville
2). Maumelle
3). Pea Ridge
4). Farmington
5). Waldron
6). Subiaco
7). Gravette
8). Ozark
9). Lincoln
10). Booneville
4A-1 District standings
1). Pea Ridge 12-2*
2). Farmington 12-2
3). Gravette 9-5
4). Lincoln 7-7
5). Ozark 7-7*
6). Berryville 5-9
7). Prairie Grove 3-11
8). Gentry 0-12
*Holds the tiebreaker
MaxPreps state 4A girls basketball poll
Feb. 10, 2013
1). Malvern
2). Prairie Grove
3). Star City
4). Farmington
5). Valley VIew
6). Central Arkansas
7). Bauxite
8). Ozark
9). Lincoln
10). Heber Springs
Other 4A-1 schools
11). Berryville
12). Gentry
16). Gravette
33). Pea Ridge
North Region Top 10 poll
1). Prairie Grove
2). Farmington
3). Ozark
4). Lincoln
5). Berryville
6). Gentry
7). Maumelle
8). Gravette
9). Pottsville
10). Dover
4A-1 girls district standings
1). Prairie Grove 14-0
2). Farmington 12-2
3). Lincoln 10-4
4). Ozark 7-5
5). Berryville 5-7
6). Gravette 3-11
7). Gentry 2-12
8). Pea Ridge 1-13
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Editor’s note: John McGee is an award-winning columnist and sports writer. He is the art teacher at Pea Ridge elementary schools, coaches elementary track and writes a regular sports column for The Times.
He can be contacted through The Times at [email protected]. The opinions of the writer are his own, and are not necessarily those of The Times.
Sports, Pages 8 on 02/27/2013