Tilt with Berryville ends long road swing for Farmington
Posted on Wednesday, October 8, 2008
ANTHONY REYES Northwest Arkansas Times Farmington junior quarterback Chance Hyslip (16 ) keeps the ball against Prairie Grove Friday in Prairie Grove. The Cardinals lost 28-15.
FARMINGTON - The lush Riviera Bermuda grass at Allen Holland Field will be a welcome sight for Farmington.
Berryville comes to town Friday night for the Cardinals' homecoming, ending a month-long road swing for Farmington.
"It's homecoming, in more ways than one," said Mike Adams, Farmington head coach.
The Cardinals (3-2, 1-1 1-4 A ) haven't played at home since a 27-14 defeat to Siloam Springs in the season opener. They won three straight games on the road before suffering a 28-15 loss last week at 1-4 A Conference rival Prairie Grove.
The Tigers' running game controlled the clock and the ball, preventing Farmington's offense from gaining traction. The Cardinals were limited to 16 first half snaps and eight first downs for the game, 10 fewer than their season average. A 22-7 deficit early in the third quarter compounded the Cardinals'difficulties, forcing them to depart from their ball-control offense.
"It's hard to get any kind of rhythm or continuity going when you don't have very many plays to establish it with," Adams said. "Part of that was they maintained possession and had a couple of long drives.
"The other thing was we got behind in the second half and we kind of had to get out of our comfort zone and throw the ball a little more than what is characteristic for us. We were in a situation where we had to throw it instead of throwing it when we wanted to throw it."
The stomach virus that slowed senior fullback Marvin Beaufort also hamstrung the Cardinal offense. Beaufort, Farmington's second-leading rusher (314 yards ), missed all but one practice last week and wasn't at full strength for the game.
"That's a big threat in our offense that was kind of negated," Adams said. "He didn't have the practice time to get prepared, and he was less than 100 percent. But a big part of it was they did a good job taking away some stuff from us, and we didn't adjust very well."
Berryville (1-4, 0-2 ) is winless in conference play. Shiloh Christian meted out a 65-0 shellacking in the league opener, and Huntsville notched its first victory of the season, 16-14, last week against the Bobcats. Nonconference play proved more fruitful for the Bobcats. They lost close games to Yellville-Summitt (28-20 ) and Marshall (29-21 ) and beat Green Forest (17-15 ).
With the season at the halfway point, Adams said Friday night's game is important to the Cardinals' playoff prospects. Five teams from the 1-4 A Conference will receive postseason invitations.
"When you play a conference game at home, you've got to really focus on those and you've got to expect to win those," Adams said. "... We can't let Prairie Grove beat us twice. We can't have a hangover.
"We're going to move on. That's another reason we're going to focus on ourselves this week. We need to make sure we get better."
Adams said improved tackling and route running have been stressed in practice this week. Missed tackles helped Prairie Grove's offense sustain drives, and pass routes not run to the correct depth contributed to a lack of continuity on offense.
"Defensively, we have to be better tacklers," Adams said. "The second thing is we have to do a better job offensively of making first downs.
"We were undisciplined in our route running last week. We made the catch but we ended up a lot of times fourth-and-1 or fourth-and-2. If we had run our routes to the proper distance, we had first downs. We have to improve on that."
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