Warren Closes Season With Hard Loss

Photo by Robert Camp

The Lumberjacks and their coaches knew the second round of the playoffs would be a hard game, facing the Arkadelphia Badgers.  It is doubtful they expected the final results.  No one did.

Arkadelphia dominated the game from the first play and dealt Warren a 41-14 loss.  It was a difficult night for the men in orange and black, as they could not get anything going on offense and had no answers to stop the Badgers.  Arkadelphia scored on each possession of the first half and Warren generated very little offense.  Two lost fumbles by the Jacks added to their woes and the halftime score was 41-0.

Photo by Robert Camp

In the second half, with the clock running under the sportsmanship rule and with Arkadelphia playing second teamers, the Lumberjacks forced a punt and mounted a drive.  With a little help from a targeting call, the Jack offense moved into Badger territory.  Arkedelphia brought their first team defense back onto the field in an attempt to preserve a shutout.  The Lumberjacks, however, scored on a 13-yard touchdown pass from J'malachi Kinnard to Cade Reep.  Jesus Tinoco made the PAT and cut the score to 41-7.

In the 4th quarter, the Lumberjacks threatened to score again, but the Badgers intercepted a pass at the 2-yard line.  With 2:35 left in the game, the Lumberjacks got back on the board with a three-yard touchdown run by Kinnard and Tinoco made the point after to set the final score at 41-14.

Photo by Robert Camp

It was a difficult way to end what has been another great season with yet another conference title.  Taking nothing away from Arkadelphia, who appeared motivated and were obviously very good, the Lumberjacks seemed to not recover completely from the loss of Treylon Burks to injury and the injury to Christian Calhoun as well as several other players who played the final several games as walking wounded.  While the Lumberjacks remained a very good team, the consistency seemed to lack at the end of the year and it just was not meant to be.

Warren loses an great class of seniors who won a state title in 2016, finished second in the state in 2017 and won their third consecutive conference championship in 2018.  They will go down as one of Warren's all time great group of players and successful teams.

Now we get ready for 2019 with some very good returning athletes and some exciting newcomers.  Maybe a little young, but ready to build on the Lumberjack tradition of winning.