For the second straight season, the Pine Bluff football team is leaving Arkansas to begin the year.
The Zebras will take on Millwood High School from Oklahoma City at 11 a.m. Saturday in DeSoto, Texas, a suburb of Dallas.
PBHS coach Micheal Williams said outside of this game and last year’s opener in Grenada, Mississippi, some of his players will never leave Arkansas, making this a great opportunity for them.
“Growing up, the furthest we ever been to, and we thought it was really going somewhere, was Branson, Missouri,” Williams said. “I had our kids in mind when we first decided to do this. Our kids, had them in mind of being able to get out there on the road and be able to see something that they’ve never seen before or not even get an opportunity ever to see something like this ever again.”
The Zebras rented charter buses and left early Thursday. Williams said they made a point to stop at Buc-ee’s, a well-known Texas-based gas station and convenience store. Following the game, they will stick around for college fairs and a battle of the bands before returning to Arkansas. Williams estimated they’ll arrive home around midnight.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
This game is part of the “Guard the Line” series which brings together teams from different states. The series includes four games over two weeks, with all but one being played at DeSoto High School’s Eagle Stadium.
Pine Bluff and Millwood will kick off Saturday’s action, with host DeSoto playing Creekside (Fairburn, Georgia) in the evening.
Next Saturday, Dallas Skyline will face Fort Bend Marshall (Missouri City, Tex.) in DeSoto. Pine Bluff will welcome Dallas Kimball to Arkansas in a game to be played at Simmons Bank Field at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff.
Both of Pine Bluff’s games in this series will be Saturday games kicking off at 11 a.m., making the late-summer heat a concern. Williams said he has had the Zebras hydrating all week to prepare.
“We gonna make sure we have plenty of pickle juice available for the kids, and Gatorade and liquid IV for the kids,” Williams said. “Playing in Texas heat is a little different from playing in Arkansas, but hot is hot. So, we gotta make sure we minimize a lot of the staying up all night and a lot of the being outside when we not supposed to be outside.”
Millwood is a smaller school, but a successful one. The Falcons reached the Oklahoma Secondary School Activities Association Class 2A state championship game each of the past two seasons, though they fell short of winning a title. Millwood went 26-4 over those two seasons, with three of those four losses coming against state championship-winning teams.
Pine Bluff is coming off a 5A state semifinalist run in Arkansas. The Zebras have a few key players to replace from last year, so Williams said whichever team has the most players step up and overachieve will probably win.
“That’s what everybody waiting to see, what type of team and what type of product we gonna put out there,” Williams said. “To be honest, we’re anxious to see how we show up, but I do think the difference going to be the guys, and that’s for their team too, the guys that nobody expected to show up, show up.”