Prairie Grove overpowers Green Forest

Before his team’s road game against Prairie Grove on Friday, Sept. 27, Green Forest coach Greg Tibbitt described Prairie Grove’s Wing-T offense as “a machine.”

As it turns out, Tibbitt was right. And Green Forest couldn’t find the shutoff switch.

Prairie Grove piled up more than 560 yards of total offense in a 56-0 victory over Green Forest in the 4A-1 conference opener for both teams.

“They’re really good,” Tibbitt said. “We played well defensively the first drive. It sounds almost stupid, but we made them drive the field. We got the ball after they scored and we drove it past midfield, couldn’t pick up a first down. We punted and couldn’t stop them. It was kind of that way every possession, it seemed like.”

There were some bright spots for the Tigers. Senior Ridge Gordon-Swofford rushed for 100 yards on 27 carries, and Tibbitt praised junior Ryne Stone’s play in place of senior Brityn Gilliam, who was out with a knee injury.

“Ryne Stone had a really good game for us offensively,” Tibbitt said. “He had three catches for 50 yards. There were things we did well. Like I told our kids today in film, we’d have a god first down, terrible second, decent third and just didn’t do enough to pick up first downs.”

Dropped passes hurt Green Forest, Tibbitt said. “(Senior quarterback) Mason Meador had an incredible night, but you don’t see it on the stats because we had eight drops,” Tibbitt said. “He distributed the ball really well and mixed it up, threw it to a lot of different people, but a lot of different people dropped the ball. It’s just one of those nights. You’re playing a really, really good team. You’ve got to play almost mistake-free, and we didn’t do that. We gave them things. You just can’t do that and win those games.”

Green Forest faces another difficult challenge this week, hosting Gravette. The Lions are 4-0 and coming off a 62-24 home victory over Lincoln. Kickoff is scheduled for 7 p.m. Friday at Tiger Stadium.