CLASS 7A : Cabot no match for best in West
Posted on Saturday, November 10, 2007
SPRINGDALE — Firsts keep piling up for Springdale Har-Ber.
The eighth-ranked Wildcats, playing only their second year of varsity football, rolled to a 35-14 victory over No. 10 Cabot for their first playoff victory Friday.
Har-Ber (9-2 ), which earned the 7 A-West’s No. 1 seed after tying Bentonville for the conference title, will host Russellville in the semifinals next Friday at Jarrell Williams Bulldog Stadium. Cabot, which defeated Russellville 55-42 in its final regular-season game to qualify for the playoffs, finished 7-4.
The Wildcats were efficient, scoring touchdowns on four of six possessions. The only times they didn’t score were on their first possession of the second half when Oscar Escobar was wide left on a 32-yard field goal attempt and their final drive, which reached Cabot’s 19 when the game ended.
Otherwise, Har-Ber was nearly perfect. Starting quarterback Patrick Calcagni passed for two touchdowns and ran for a third. His backup, Zach Faust, also passed for a touchdown. Calcagni and Faust combined for 10-of-16 passing for 256 yards.
But most damaging for the Panthers was a pair of secondhalf turnovers deep in Har-Ber territory.
Cabot took the second half kickoff and drove to the Har-Ber 8, before Michael James fumbled.
After Escobar’s missed field goal, the Panthers drove inside the Wildcats’ 20. But a motion penalty on fourth-and-1 forced Cabot to pass. Houston Pruitt intercepted Jeremy Wilson’s attempt at the 10 and raced untouched down the Cabot sideline for a 90-yard touchdown and a 28-0 lead with 10: 37 left in the game.
“We moved it between the 20 s, but we’d get it down there and something would go wrong,” Cabot Coach Mike Malham said. “In the second half, we came out and fumbled inside the 10, which has killed us all year.”
Cabot’s ball-control Dead-T offense, which held the ball for 31: 23 to Har-Ber’s 16: 37, limited Har-Ber’s opportunities, but the Wildcats took advantage when they could.
Har-Ber scored touchdowns on each of its three first-half possessions for a 21-0 halftime lead.
Calcagni’s 1-yard run capped a 60-yard, game-opening drive.
He directed a 95-yard drive on the Wildcats’ next possession, passing 35 yards to Josh Fohner for the touchdown with 1: 04 left in the first quarter for a 14-0 lead.
Cabot put together a 15-play drive that took nearly eight minutes, but James, who finished with 164 yards on 37 carries, was stopped about a foot short of a first down on fourth-and-3.
Faust then guided the Wildcats on an 80-yard scoring drive. He passed 29 yards to Fohner on a second-and-24 play, then split two Cabot defenders on a 40-yard touchdown pass to Ethan Morris with 2: 24 left in the half.
The Panthers had another long drive come up empty before halftime. Wilson passed incomplete in the end zone twice in the final 12 seconds as Cabot ran out of time.
After Pruitt’s interception return, Cabot scored on Jordan Carlisle’s 20-yard run with 7: 10 left. Calcagni hit a streaking Derrek Sanders for 48 yards two plays later to push the advantage back to 35-7.
Carlisle added a 35-yard run with 2: 48 remaining to set the final margin. Carlisle added 85 yards on 13 carries as the Panthers piled up 293 on the ground.
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