The final two Watson Chapel football games this season will be played outside of Jefferson County, starting Friday against a team which barely avoided an upset last week.
Beebe will host the Wildcats at 7 p.m. at A.S. “Bro” Erwin Stadium in Beebe.
Watson Chapel (0-8, 0-5 in 5A-Central) enters this week still seeking its first win of the season, but the Badgers nearly let another struggling team end a conference losing streak last week.
Beebe (5-3, 3-2) needed overtime to slip past Jacksonville, 35-34. The Titans nearly got their first conference victory in two years but couldn’t finish the upset bid. It was the second-most points the Badgers have allowed this season only behind the 49 Joe T. Robinson scored a week prior.
Watson Chapel Coach Steven Heard said the Wildcats have watched the film from that game looking for any advantages they can find against the Badgers.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
“With football, it’s all about matchups and who’s hot that night, who got something going on, who can find a chink in the armor, so to speak,” Heard said. “But yeah, our guys have seen the Jacksonville film, and we’re looking at some things that we could expose or whatever, but yeah, it is something that I showed my boys.”
Jacksonville, like Watson Chapel, is a run-heavy team. Beebe allowed 196 rushing yards and five touchdowns to the Titans last week, and the Wildcats will be hoping for similar success on Friday.
Watson Chapel ran for 106 yards and a touchdown against a stout Pine Bluff defensive front last week after rushing for 175 yards and three touchdowns the week prior against White Hall.
Senior quarterback Malachi Rayford averaged 8.6 yards per carry in those two games and scored three total touchdowns, while senior Nicholas Baker averaged 4.5 yards per carry and scored once.
Heard said the Wildcats are confident in their running attack but will need to throw it some, too.
“We’re going to have to mix it up a little bit, because Beebe’s the type of team you can’t be one-dimensional,” Heard said. “They sell out pressure from a lot of different angles to try to confuse the offense. We have to be smart with it and give a good dose of both.”
Beebe has a dangerous rushing attack of its own. The Badgers rushed for 213 yards in the win against Jacksonville, with senior running back Curtis Goodrich finishing with 173 yards and four touchdowns. Senior quarterback Ty McCormick helped with 243 passing yards and a touchdown.
The Badgers have scored 32 or more points in four games this year and have been held below 21 points just twice.
Watson Chapel allowed 32 points against each of their past two opponents, the fewest the Wildcats have allowed all season.
WHITE HALL AT JACKSONVILLE
Two teams out of playoff contention are trying to finish the season on an upswing.
White Hall (1-7, 1-4 in 5A-Central) tried to keep up momentum from its only victory of the season against Watson Chapel a week earlier by scoring on the opening kickoff return by freshman James Earl Jones last Friday against Maumelle. White Hall led 14-7 before Maumelle, which shares the 5A-Central Conference lead with Pulaski County rival Joe T. Robinson, pulled away for a 55-20 win. That loss knocked the Bulldogs out of contention for the fourth and final seed in the state playoffs. White Hall is left to take on Jacksonville (2-6, 0-5) on Friday and host Pine Bluff next week. Jacksonville hasn’t won a conference game since Oct. 6, 2023, when it defeated Sylvan Hills 28-13. The Titans have lost 16 straight in the 5A-Central since, but that streak nearly stopped at 15 when Beebe eked out a 35-34 overtime win to control its playoff destiny.
Kickoff at Titan Stadium, 1301 W. Main St. in Jacksonville, is at 7 p.m.
Information for this article was contributed by I.C. Murrell of the Pine Bluff Commercial.