After earning its first win of the season last week, Pine Bluff High School is looking to start a winning streak.
The Zebras will start a two-game road stretch on Friday when they face Maumelle at Hornet Stadium at 7 p.m.
Pine Bluff (1-3, 1-0 in 5A-Central) Coach Micheal Williams said rather than feeling good about beating Jacksonville last week, the Zebras are focused on continuing to improve and win more games.
“What they need to do now is work on cleaning up some of the things that they’re doing wrong,” Williams said. “We looked at that film, and yeah, we won 25-13, but we clearly should have won by way more. We clearly shouldn’t have let them have the 13 that they had. So now, it’s just a matter of cleaning up those small things.”
The win against the Titans, which came in the Zebras’ home opener, was Pine Bluff’s first after suffering two close road losses in non-conference action.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Maumelle (2-2, 1-0) will also bring some momentum into this game. The Hornets have won their past two games after starting the season 0-2. They defeated Vilonia 38-24 to conclude non-conference play, then opened their 5A-Central schedule with a 27-14 win against Beebe.
The Hornets are 2-0 at home and 0-2 on the road, so the Zebras will have to break that trend if they wish to pick up a second straight victory.
Williams said Maumelle has been a tough opponent every year he has coached at Pine Bluff.
“The way we slow their momentum down is we have to take the game to them and take the fight to them,” Williams said. “We can’t wait on them to throw the first blow. We’re gonna have to throw the first punch.”
The Zebras have shown they can strike first, as they did against Jacksonville. Finishing the game in the fourth quarter was the big need entering that game, and Pine Bluff did enough on both sides of the ball to close out the game.
That didn’t come without a third quarter slump by the offense. After scoring 19 points in the first half, Pine Bluff was held to minus-4 yards in the third quarter across three possessions. The Zebras broke through again in the fourth quarter with a 55-yard touchdown drive to help seal the victory.
Williams said he thinks the players let memories of losing leads in the second half in prior games get them out of rhythm, and they can’t let that happen again against Maumelle.
“They need to erase their memory,” Williams said. “They need to forget about what done happened in the past. … Now that they out of it, I think they just have to clear they minds out (at) the half. It’s a 0-0 game. Start off just like we did in the first half.”
Maumelle should be a tougher test for the Pine Bluff defense than Jacksonville. While the Titans feature the run, the Hornets are more versatile.
Junior quarterback Levi Warrior is averaging 233 passing yards per game with eight touchdowns and four interceptions. He also averages 26 rushing yards per game and has one touchdown. Senior running backs Bubba Johnson and Jacob Henry lead the rushing attack, which averages 124.3 yards per game as a team.
Williams said the Zebras will need to be better against the pass than they have been.
“I think our front four is good enough to defend the run without having to load the box, anything like that,” Williams said. “So, we have to just make sure we’re dropping in our zones correctly, getting in man coverage correctly, and then just make sure we’re reading our keys.”