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The Green Forest Tigers didn’t get the first round upset they were hoping for against the Mena Bearcats on Friday, Nov. 15, but they did get a taste of playoff football.
Coach Greg Tibbitt, for one, is hungry for more.
Mena scored two quick touchdowns to open the game and went on to a 49-12 victory over visiting Green Forest, which earned its first playoff berth in 10 seasons — discounting the 2020 COVID-19 season when the Tigers “opted into” the playoffs.
The playoff berth represented the latest step forward for a Green Forest team that has won four games each of the past two seasons after not reaching that mark for a decade.
“I think we’ve taken a step forward,” Tibbitt said. “We’ve talked a lot about, we want to be that consistent playoff team, whether it’s somewhere 1 through 5. On your good years, you want to be battling for that 1 to 3 spot and on your down years you want to be battling for the 4 or 5, not not being in and that’s our goal moving forward, for sure.”
The Tigers were powered by a senior class that included running back Ridge Gordon- Swofford, quarterback Mason Meador and receiver Brityn Gilliam, as well as center Isiah Lopez, nose guard Wescley Lopez and cornerbacks Diego Martinez and Boris Tobar.
Martinez returned an interception 63 yards for a touchdown against Mena, pulling the Tigers within 14-6 with 10:17 remaining in the second quarter.
Mena got its third touchdown of the game late in the first half, however, to go up 21-6 and then extended that lead to 49-6 before Meador found Gilliam for a 44-yard touchdown pass with less than three minutes remaining.
“They’re a really good football team,” Tibbitt said of the Bearcats. “I think the difference was, they’ve been there a couple of times and we haven’t. I just don’t think we played very well. I don’t think they’re that much better than us. I know that kind of sounds stupid but I just think it was a huge difference of, their kids have been there. They’ve been in the playoffs. They understand it, and it was just kind of a new thing for us. We got off to a bad start and just couldn’t recover. We fought, fought, fought and then it just got away from us late.”
Going forward, Tibbitt acknowledged that the Tigers will have to replace a lot of production from their senior class.
“We will lose a lot of offense just with Mason, Ridge and Brityn,” Tibbitt said. “One thing that gets overlooked a lot is Isiah Lopez, just because he’s a lineman and you kind of get lost there. He stepped right in and played center for us this year. He had played tackle for us. We thought he would be a guard for us this year, but we needed a center and he stepped right in there. He did an incredible job, called out our blocking schemes from up front. So he’s another one that’s going to be missed from the offensive side. And defensively, Boris and Diego were three-year starters at corner and Brityn was playing over there a lot until he got injured in the Greenland game. And Wescley Lopez up front. So, yeah, that senior class has been huge for us.”
Still, Green Forest won’t be starting completely from scratch. The Tigers’ gritty junior class gives them something to build on.
“Our junior class is one that kind of gets overlooked, too, just because they’re a blue-collar group,” Tibbitt said. “There’s a lot of them that got a lot of playing time. ... So that junior class will step right in, I think, and be leaders for us and help push the ball forward.”
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