Bulldogs celebrate milestone

Greenwood gives Jones win No. 300

Bud Sullins/Special to Siloam Sunday Siloam Springs senior wide receiver Primo Agbehi hauls in a 53-yard touchdown pass from Landon Ellis as Greenwood's Dawson James defends on the play during Friday's game at Panther Stadium. Greenwood defeated Siloam Springs 42-7.

Bud Sullins/Special to Siloam Sunday Siloam Springs senior wide receiver Primo Agbehi hauls in a 53-yard touchdown pass from Landon Ellis as Greenwood's Dawson James defends on the play during Friday's game at Panther Stadium. Greenwood defeated Siloam Springs 42-7.

Sunday, October 7, 2018

Greenwood coach Rick Jones has never had a Gatorade bath during the middle of the season, but that all changed Friday night.

Greenwood gave Jones his 300th career win as a head coach with a 42-7 mercy-rule win over Siloam Springs on homecoming at Panther Stadium.

Greenwood 42, Siloam Springs 7

Greenwood 14 14 14 0 — 42

Siloam Springs 0 7 0 0 — 7

First Quarter

Green — Wilkinson 2 run (Ennis kick), 9:47.

Green — Holt 3 run (Ennis kick), 4:25.

Second Quarter

Green — Holt 5 run (Ennis kick), 6:42.

Siloam — Agbehi 53 pass from Ellis (Losh kick), 3:55.

Green — Holt 3 run (Ennis kick), 1:01

Third Quarter

Green — Wilkinson 22 run (Ennis kick), 8:49.

Green — Leonard 14 pass from Holt (Ennis kick), 7:12.

Greenwood Siloam Springs

First Downs 25 10

Rushes-Yards 29-161 27-83

Passing Yards 315 145

Comp-Att-Int 27-40-0 11-22-0

Punts 1-43 5-49.2

Fumbles-Lost 1-1 2-1

Penalties-Yards 5-40 2-25

Individual Statistics

Rushing — Greenwood, Wilkinson 13-75, Holt 8-51, Jones 5-27, Leonard 1-16, Chatfield 1-3, Earnhart 1-(minus 11). Siloam Springs, Thrailkill 17-70, Ellis 5-(minus 2), Fuentes 3-4, Pool 2-11.

Passing — Greenwood, Holt 22-33-0-273, Presley 3-6-0-35, Earnhart 2-2-0-17. Siloam Springs, Ellis 11-22-0-145.

Receiving — Greenwood, Dawson 9-139, Leonard 2-104, Belue 3-29, Wilkinson 3-23, Taylor 1-9, Carter 1-8, Jones 1-3. Siloam Springs, Pippin 6-59, Weaver 2-13, Agbehi 1-53, Criner 1-13, Broyles 1-7.

Missed Field Goals — None.

6A-West Conference football standings

Overall Conf.

Team W-L W-L

Benton 5-1 3-0

Greenwood 5-1 3-0

El Dorado 3-3 2-1

Russellville 4-2 2-1

Lake Hamilton 4-2 1-2

Siloam Springs 3-3 1-2

LR Hall 1-5 0-3

Sheridan 1-5 0-3

Last Friday’s results

Greenwood 42, Siloam Springs 7

Benton 49, LR Hall 0

Russellville 28, Lake Hamilton 14

El Dorado 31, Sheridan 17

This week’s games

Siloam Springs at Lake Hamilton

Benton at El Dorado

LR Hall at Sheridan

Russellville at Greenwood

"We have a philosophy about individual awards, and the thing about winning 300 games as a coach is it's far from being individual," said a freshly-drenched Jones after the game. "I told somebody (Thursday) night, I remember my first game as a head coach. It was 1986 and we (Edmond, Okla.) were coaching against Ron Lancaster (at Enid, Okla.), who was the winningest coach in America percentage-wise at the time, and I thought I had no chance. And I didn't.

"But that's the great thing about it. We had a great chance. We won the game, very first one, it was like 21-7, and our coaches and our players overcame my bad coaching, and that's the thing that makes the difference. It's happened now 299 other times."

After the game, Siloam Springs coach Brandon Craig congratulated Jones in person.

"I have a tremendous amount of respect for him," Craig said. "He's been doing it a long time. He does it the right way, and it always shows. It just shows how good of a job he does and how good a job his staff does. His kids play so hard, and they're just unbelievably coached. (Jones is a) great coach."

Jones found it ironic that his 300th career win came at Siloam Springs, the site of one of the best losses in Greenwood history.

Siloam Springs beat Greenwood 38-31 in 2010, but the Bulldogs turned things around after that night and went on to win the Class 5A State Title and also won their next 50 games in a row.

"I didn't think about the irony of that," Jones said. "We spent a pretty bad night here several years ago. There's no doubt about it. We were 2-2 and our fans were yelling ugly things about myself and my quarterback, and it was really impressive the way that team rallied and came together and we didn't lose again for 51 games."

Greenwood (5-1, 3-0 6A-West) piled up 311 of its 476 yards and a 28-7 lead by halftime. The Bulldogs scored a pair of quick touchdowns in the second quarter to inflict the running clock after Luke Leonard hauled in a 14-yard touchdown pass with 7:12 left in the third quarter.

Greenwood quarterback Peyton Holt completed 22 of 33 passes for 273 yards and a touchdown. He also rushed for 51 yards on eight carries and scored three touchdowns.

"Their quarterback is a special player, and he knows how to deliver the ball all over the field," Craig said. "Honestly he took advantage of every opportunity we gave him and did a tremendous job of seeing the field, running it when he needed to be successful, and throwing it all over the place and making us look not too good."

Greenwood wide receivers Treyton Dawson and Leonard each caught nine passes with Dawson going for 139 yards and Leonard 104.

Hunter Wilkinson led Greenwood with 75 rushing yards on 13 carries and scored a pair of touchdowns.

"We had a few bumps in the road, and we're not pretty sometimes, but our effort overall is pretty good," Jones said. "I thought our receivers blocked like crazy and ran the ball hard. We struggled running the ball against them. I thought Siloam does a nice job. They're physical and tough and good-sized kids. They're hard to move around."

Wilkinson got Greenwood on the board with a 2-yard touchdown run in the first quarter and Holt made it 14-0 later in the first on a 3-yard run.

Holt's second touchdown gave Greenwood a 21-0 lead with 6:42 left in the half.

Siloam Springs (3-3, 1-2) answered with a score to make it 21-7 when Primo Agbehi hauled in a 53-yard touchdown pass from Landon Ellis.

The Bulldogs came right back with a Holt's third rushing touchdown to take a 28-7 lead at halftime.

Wilkinson scored on a 22-yard run in the third quarter for a 35-7 lead.

Greenwood's defense held Siloam Springs to 228 yards of offense.

Ellis completed 11 of 22 passes for 145 yards and the touchdown to Agbehi. Spenser Pippin led all Siloam Springs receivers with six catches for 59 yards.

Running back Kaiden Thrailkill rushed 17 times for 70 yards.

One bright spot of the game for Siloam Springs was the punting of sophomore Colin Evers, who had five punts for an average of 49.2 yards, including a long punt of 61 yards and another for 55.

With the conference's top two teams out of the way, the Panthers now will turn their attention to this week's 6A-West game at Lake Hamilton.

"We understood that the Benton game and the Greenwood game were the two top teams in our conference," Craig said. "We understand though that we've got to go on the road and go a long ways and try win a tough game down in Lake Hamilton. That's all we're focused on right now is moving on to the next opponent and concentrating on fundamentals and making sure that we're taking care of our effort and mental toughness, and we're just going to keep pushing."

Sports on 10/07/2018