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The Berryville Bobcats scored first and last in their 4A-1 conference opener at Ozark on Friday, Sept. 23.
The Hillbillies did all the scoring in between, however, and beat Berryville, 50-15. “Sheer numbers, after a while, just kind of wore on us with their size and speed,” said Berryville coach Bryan Hutson, whose team is forced to play several key players on both offense and defense. “But our kids played hard.”
The Bobcats (1-3) took advantage of an Ozark turnover to grab an early lead. After the Hillbillies lost the ball on a high snap, Berryville recovered at the Ozark 22. On third down, sophomore quarterback Decimus Ruiz hit senior receiver Ethan Williams for a first down at the 8. Then, on third and goal from the 5, Ruiz flipped a shovel pass to Williams for a touchdown. Nay Blut’s extra point put the Bobcats up 7-0 with 7:05 left in the first quarter.
“That’s just Decimus making a play,” Hutson said. “We were in a bootleg but that’s just an athlete, shoveling it in there.”
Ozark answered on its next play from scrimmage as quarterback Landon Wright fired a 74-yard touchdown pass. The Hillbillies missed the extra point as Berryville held on to a 7-6 lead at the end of the first quarter.
Another Ozark fumble set up a second scoring opportunity for the Bobcats, who recovered at their own 47. From there, Berryville drove inside the Ozark 10 before fumbling the ball back to the Hillbillies.
“We’re going in to score,” Hutson said. “I was probably going to go for two to try to go up two scores, but even if we don’t make it, we’re going to be up 13-6. And then we fumble on the 10.”
Ozark responded with three touchdowns in the final 9:35 of the first half to take a 27-7 lead. “It seemed like it kind of snowballed there a little bit,” Hutson said. “It could have been a one-score game at the half.”
On the Hillbillies’ first possession of the second half, a deflected pass went right to an Ozark receiver for a long touchdown. A two-point conversion made it 35-7.
Williams scored the game’s final touchdown on a quarterback keeper from 5 yards out and Cooper Summers ran for the twopoint conversion with 3:25 left to set the final score.
Berryville faces another challenge Friday night, when the Bobcats host high-scoring Gentry. The Pioneers (4-0, 1-0) are averaging 53 points a game.
“Their offense looks really, really good,” Hutson said. “They run the Spread and they RPO it really good. They are really good on both sides of the ball.”
Game time is 7 p.m. at Bobcat Stadium.
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