Huntsville hands Bobcats 1st loss of season

The Berryville Bobcats got off to a fast start this season, but a slow start at Huntsville last week disrupted the Bobcats’ momentum.

Huntsville returned the opening kickoff for a touchdown, then converted a turnover into another quick score on the way to a 31-15 victory over visiting Berryville on Friday, Sept. 26.

“It was probably one of the worst starts I’ve ever seen,” said Berryville coach Macklin Chermak. “So what can we learn from it, and how can we start out better? How can we better prepared to start a game (this) week?”

Trailing 14-0 early, Berryville was never able to catch up, although the Bobcats moved the ball well at times against the Huntsville defense.

Junior quarterback CT Hicks completed 16 of 27 passes for 168 yards and added 44 yards rushing for Berryville — including his ninth touchdown run of the season. Classmate Jason Alvarado ran for the 67 yards and a touchdown. Another Berryville junior, slot receiver Andre Esparza, caught six passes for 62 yards.

Junior Josh Arechiga had a big game on defense for Berryville with 11.5 tackles. Esparza had eight tackles while senior Russell Conard added seven tackles and recovered a fumble. Senior Jerry Lanje had six stops, including one tackle for loss, and forced a fumble.

“All the kids played hard,” Chermak said. “That was not the issue. We played hard. We just lost focus on our jobs and the little things. We’ve just got to get back to doing the little things right, trusting teammates and trusting ourselves and getting the job done.”

The loss, in the 4A-1 conference opener for both teams, dropped Berryville to 3-1 overall and 0-1 in the conference heading into this week’s home game against Elkins (3-1, 1-0), the preseason conference favorite. The Elks have scored at least 44 points in three of their four games this season, including a 49-6 home win over Gentry last week to open conference play.

“We’ll take whatever comes at us,” Chermak said. “We’re going to attack it head on.”