Green Forest shines everywhere except scoreboard

The Green Forest Tigers did a lot of things well in their season opener at West Fork on Friday, Aug. 25.

“Except score,” Green Forest coach Greg Tibbitt said.

West Fork scored a pair of first-half touchdowns and made the lead hold up for a 20-8 victory over Green Forest.

“We beat ’em everywhere except the scoreboard,” Tibbitt said. “We outrushed ’em, we out-threw ’em, we had more total yards.”

Green Forest, starting its fourth season under Tibbitt, ran 79 offensive plays compared with 29 for West Fork, picked up 19 first downs and converted seven fourthdown attempts in nine tries.

While West Fork did not turn the ball over, however, Green Forest lost the ball once on a fumble and once on an interception.

“We just had those two turnovers,” Tibbitt said. “I really felt like that kept us from winning the game eventually. But I thought we did a lot of good things.”

Offensively, Green Forest leaned heavily on junior running back Ridge Gordon- Swofford, as expected. Gordon-Swofford ran for 122 yards on 29 carries as Green Forest outrushed West Fork 210-199.

“Our scoring drive was nine minutes and 56 seconds,” Tibbitt said of a march that ended with a 1-yard second- quarter touchdown run by sophomore quarterback Brityn Gilliam and cut West Fork’s lead to 14-6. “That’s kind of what we want to do right now. We feel like that’s our strength and we want to build on that.”

Sophomore Gabe Serna added 43 yards rushing on nine carries for Green Forest, while Gilliam passed for 53 yards and ran for 41.

Junior quarterback Mason Meador completed both of his passes for 59 yards, including a 55-yard completion to sophomore Justin Ayala.

“Both of them played really well,” Tibbitt said of Gilliam and Meador. “Mason kind of came in in a bad spot there at the end, but he can chuck it. This week, now that we can get back outside again, we’re going to work him more into our offense a little bit and more of a better rotation with those guys and get both of them a lot of snaps. So we’ll see how that works.”

Defensivly, Green Forest recorded a safety late in the second quarter when sophomore Kasen Robinson tackled a West Fork ballcarrier in the end zone. Sophomore Colton Fancher had five tackles for Green Forest.

Green Forest will play its first home game of the season on Friday, Sept. 1, hosting Greenland.

The Pirates went 8-4 last year in their final season under longtime coach Lee Larkan, including a 51-9 victory over Green Forest. Greenland opened the 2023 season last Friday with a 47-12 home loss to Lincoln.

“They’re very similar to West Fork,” Tibbitt said. “Big defensive line, pretty good skill guys offensively. They lost a good group last year of seniors, lost a legendary coach. They’re similar to what they were last year, just a few tweaks here and there.”