Lincoln pulls away from Green Forest in 2nd half

It’s a cliche, but sometimes it’s accurate.

The Lincoln Wolves defeated the Green Forest Tigers 41-12 in the 4A-1 conference opener for both teams on Friday, Sept. 16, at Lincoln. But for much of the first half, at least, it was a much closer game than the score would indicate.

“We just continue to ride the roller coaster,” Green Forest coach Greg Tibbitt said. “We just couldn’t capitalize on things.”

Green Forest’s defense came up with a big goal-line stand in the opening moments and the Tigers trailed just 7-6 after senior Ryan Bruegel spun away from a cluster of Lincoln defenders for a 54-yard touchdown run with 11:31 to play in the second quarter.

“I thought he was down,” Tibbitt said. “I think Lincoln thought he was down. I think everybody thought he was down except Breugel and the referees, so that’s all that mattered.”

Neither team scored again for more than seven minutes, but Lincoln got a pair of quick touchdowns late in the first half and began to break the game open. First, the Wolves scored on a 68-yard pass with 3:56 left. Then Lincoln recovered a fumble at the Green Forest 24 and threw for a touchdown on the next play to make it 21-7 with 3:27 remaining.

Lincoln dominated the second half, extending its lead to 42-6 before Green Forest quarterback Isaiah Fraga threw a 23-yard touchdown pass to Joel Salgado with 3.3 seconds left in the third quarter.

“They’re the kind of team that can score a lot of points, and we’ve seen them give up a lot of points,” Tibbitt said. “We just couldn’t take advantage of situations. You know, you have a 30-yard pass play and then it’s holding. So you’re 10 yards back from where the holding was, so it ends up being a 40-yard loss. That’s just the kind of night we were having.”

Green Forest (1-3) will host Ozark on Friday at Tiger Stadium. The Hillbillies (2-2) opened conference play with a 50-15 victory over Berryville last week. Ozark won three conference championships in the past four seasons in the 4A-4 before moving to the 4A-1 this fall.

“I was in that conference down at Mena, and they were kind of the cream of that conference,” said Tibbitt, who served as defensive coordinator for the Bearcats before he moved to Green Forest. “When Shiloh and Prairie Grove moved out, I really compared Ozark to Prairie Grove — just kind of a consistent program, big, physical, well-coached. They’re very similar to Prairie Grove as far as the program goes.”