Green Forest hosts struggling Cedarville

The Green Forest Tigers will be back in action Friday night, hosting Cedarville at Tiger Stadium.

The Tigers, who beat Cedarville 30-20 on the road in 2022, had an open date last Friday after starting the season 1-1 with a loss to West Fork on Aug. 25 and a dramatic 56-52 victory over Greenland on Sept. 1.

Cedarville has struggled to an 0-2 start this season under first-year coach Spencer Adams.

The Pirates lost to Perryville 41-0 on Aug. 25 before falling to Mountainburg 17-8 last Friday.

“We’ve just been watching film on them,” Green Forest coach Greg Tibbitt said Monday. “I got a chance to watch them the other night. They’re big up front. They’re pretty young this year, got a new head coach. They’ve kind of struggled the last few weeks. So hopefully we can just stay on course and do what we need to do.”

Green Forest will be led as usual by junior running back Ridge Gordon-Swofford, who ran for 171 yards and five touchdowns and caught a touchdown pass in the win over Greenland. Gordon-Swofford ran for a pair of touchdowns in last season’s win at Cedarville.

The Tigers’ offense also got a boost against Greenland from junior quarterback Mason Meador, who threw for 194 yards and a touchdown and ran for a TD.

With starting quarterback Brityn Gilliam pressed into duty as a defensive back in place of the injured Kasen Robinson, Green Forest had planned for Meador to play every third series at quarterback to give Gilliam a breather.

On Monday, Tibbitt said Green Forest will “have a little competition” in practice this week.

“Brityn’s helping us a lot on defense right now, so we’ll see what that looks like at the end of the week,” Tibbitt said. “But we’re going to keep doing what we’ve been doing. We’re going to run the ball, throw play-action and run our option game. That’s what’s been’s working for us so far this year.”

Friday’s kickoff is scheduled for 7 p.m. at Tiger Stadium.