The Siloam Springs football team wrapped up its spring practices Friday with its annual Maroon-White game at Panther Stadium.
The Maroon team, playing offense, scored a pair of rushing touchdowns in each half, while the White team had a defensive touchdown in a 12-6 victory.
The game served as the Panthers' 10 practice in pads -- the most allowed in the spring by the Arkansas Activities Association -- and second-year coach Brandon Craig was pleased with the team's progress.
"You know, we've been really physical this spring," Craig said. "And to go through 10 physical practices and come out with limited injuries is a head coach's dream. That was our goal. It really worked out for us."
Craig said the Panthers played showed the same physicality in the Maroon-White game on Friday.
"I saw the same thing tonight," he said. "Our kids played physical. The effort was there. We made some mistakes, like always. I mean you do in the spring. We're way ahead of where we were last year in terms of terminology and what's going on and that kind of stuff, and that makes it a lot easier."
Offensively, the Maroon team made a handful of big plays while rotating personnel in and out of the game, including at the quarterback position where senior Taylor Pool started and sophomore Hunter Talley and junior Colin Evers also played.
Pool through a 42-yard pass to Gage Weaver on the second play of the game, while Talley and Evers also completed several passes.
Maroon scored its first touchdown with 7 minutes left in the first half on a four-yard touchdown run by sophomore Zach Hull, who rotated at running back with senior Jackson Norberg and juniors Keegan Soucie, Palvinson "Jeff" Phizema and Cam Collins.
The White team answered with a dominant third quarter defensively. White held Maroon to just 21 total yards on 16 offensive plays.
Senior defensive back Armando Munoz, who has had a great offseason according to coaches, intercepted a Pool pass and returned it 31 yards for White's only touchdown to tie the game 6-6.
"I've been real excited about Armando," Craig said. "He's done a great job in the weight room. He's been a real leader in the weight room for us. he's going to be a kid if he continues to stay healthy and works hard, I think he's going to have a great year."
Maroon took the lead back in the fourth quarter when Phizema took a handoff, bobbled it, recovered and broke through for a 78-yard touchdown run.
The game was played with a running clock in all four quarters, and the starts of drives and situations varied throughout the game.
Some special teams situations, such as kickoffs and field goal attempts, were held inbetween quarters.
"We wanted our kickers to be able to kick," Craig said. "We didn't want to do anything live or have squads. We just wanted our kickers to be able to kick in that setting with the lights on and a few people in the crowd. Just have that sense that it's a little more important than a 2 o'clock practice."
The Panthers had several players going both ways as well.
The Panthers will wrap up the school year this week and begin their summer program after Memorial Day on Tuesday, May 28. They'll head to team camp at Pittsburgh State (Kan.) on June 2-3.
"As a head coach you're going to see things you always need to work on and keep improving on," Craig said. "We definitely have a lot of things to keep working on and keep improving on. But we've taken steps in the right direction. Now it's just a matter of we've done all this split-team stuff, and it's really tough to do that. Now we're going to come back together as one unit and compete this summer in different camps and 7 on 7 events, so it'll be nice once we're all back on the same team playing as one unit."
Sports on 05/19/2019