The Bauxite Miners (8-1, 5-1) have a chance to break the cycle Friday with a win over Nashville at The Pit.
A win and the Miners are at least co-7-4A champions with the No. 1 seed in the 4A playoffs. Bauxite has not won a conference title since 2007 when it earned its second straight championship after winning 11 games, also for the second straight year.
“This week we are playing in a championship game with a chance to do something that has not been done in many years,” said Head Coach Daryl Patton. “Our kids are excited about the challenge and the opportunity and we want to make Bauxite proud and have a good night.”
The Miners are one win shy of tying its victories total for the past four years combined.
In Week 9, the Miners fell to defending 4A champion Arkadelphia on the road, 24-12, in a game Patton said his team deserved to lose.
“No disrespect to Arkadelphia, they played very, very good,” Patton said. “They are defending state champs and we knew going down there we were going to have to play well to beat them. We just didn’t play well and we got what we deserved. On offense, we ran 63 plays for about 360 yards, but of the 63 plays we ran five correct where every guy did their job. When you have that many mental mistakes and errors, you aren’t going to beat anybody, especially the defending state champs.”
Bauxite rushed for 298 yards against the Badgers, keeping its per-game average above 300 for the year.
In 2018, the Miners have rushed for 2,800 yards and 34 touchdowns with senior Dawson Dabbs leading the charge with 1,174 yards and 10 scores. Dabbs’ totals are good for second in the county behind Zak Wallace of Benton.
This week, the Miners host Nashville (7-2, 4-2), which is coming off of a 69-10 rout of Malvern in Week 9.
The Scrappers also run the ball effectively, rushing for 2,409 yards and 39 scores this season.
Nashville is led by a two-headed monster in sophomore Keyshawn Steward and junior Carmillias Morrison, both of which have rushed for more than 800 yards this season and have a combined 18 touchdowns.
Passing, senior Jake Moorer leads with 731 yards and seven touchdowns, completing 59 of 106 attempts.
“Nashville is good,” Patton said. “They didn’t play well against Harmony Grove and had a lot of penalties that night and they didn’t play well against Robinson, but Robinson can make anyone look bad. Nashville is really young this year and are playing four or five guys on offense and five or six on defense that are sophomores.
“They are not very big on defense, but they are very fast and very aggressive. We have our work cut out for us. The bottom line is we have never beaten Nashville, but we had never beaten Ashdown, Harmony Grove, Robinson, any of those teams. We respect Nashville, but we don’t fear them.”
Coming from the Scrappers’ defense, Patton is expecting multiple looks and a high level of aggressiveness come Friday.
“They are going to bring a variety of blitzes against us,” Patton said. “We are going to have to be sound in our blocking schemes and finish drives with points. We can’t get inside the 30-yard line like we did last week and come away with no points. We have to come away with points and control the ball to give our defense a break.”
Kickoff at The Pit for Senior Night is planned for 7 p.m.