By DOUG IRELAND, Journal Sports
Benton saved its best for last. Now the Tigers’ confidence is sky high, even if their playoff seeding isn’t.
At No. 24 in a 28-team Division I Non-Select bracket, the 5-5 Tigers head to the east side of the Baton Rouge metroplex Friday night to face 8-2 Walker, the No. 9 seed.
They can’t wait.
Benton has won four of its last five, rebounding from a 1-4 start that had veteran coach Reynolds Moore and his staff unsure if the season was salvageable. The Tigers put together their finest outing at home last Friday, posting a convincing 45-21 upset over a stout Parkway team.
Not only that performance, but how Benton pushed back from the brink of a midseason meltdown, earns the Tigers the Week 10 Team of the Week honor from the Shreveport-Bossier Journal.
It’s a quantum leap from standing 1-4 in the wake of giving up 60 (Airline) and 61 (Byrd) in humbling losses. At that point, “giving up” was a scary thought.
Benton is pretty young, with only seven senior starters. The doubts were daunting.
“A lot of our guys were listening to people and didn’t believe that we could beat Airline,” said Moore, “so when we lost that game, it was like, ‘we were gonna lose that.’ Everybody thought we were gonna beat Byrd, because at a quick look, they didn’t think Byrd was very good. Turns out, they are.
“We get hammered in that game (61-35), and that’s where as a coach you think the wheels could come off very easily. We didn’t know if this was a bunch of guys who didn’t care, or a bunch who were content, or were young, or didn’t have enough talent. We didn’t know.
“But they showed up at practice the next week and kept fighting,” he said. “That’s when we realized we didn’t have kids who didn’t want it, we just had kids who didn’t know how yet.”
They showed some backbone that Friday. Benton opened a three-score lead at home over Natchitoches Central, but the Chiefs roared back and took a 36-35 lead with six minutes left. The Tigers responded in the clutch with a late TD and two-point conversion for a 42-35 triumph.
Benton routed Southwood and rolled past Haughton to build a three-game streak. Even a 65-33 loss to district champ Captain Shreve didn’t blunt the momentum.
“It’s been fun to watch, the guys and coaches sticking with it, believing in it, making it happen,” said Moore, in his 11th season as the Tigers’ head coach, his 15th overall as a head coach, and 22nd in coaching.
Benton has a trio of tremendous senior offensive weapons: school-record-setting running back Greg Manning, quarterback Jeff King and explosive returner/receiver Trey Smith, who’s been the wild card addition. He recovered from surgery and hit the field at mid-season, and quickly became a nightmare to defend.
“If he can do anything, he needs to right now,” said Moore. “Anything he touches is gold, so we want him involved as much as possible.”
Moore didn’t know what his team was made of at midseason. Now, he describes the Tigers this way:
“Resilient. High character. (Strength) coach (Scott) Reeder likes to use the term ‘tough guys.’ We pride ourselves on being ‘Benton tough.’ The guys have shown us some toughness.
“Watch our tape and you’ll see a team that got better each week. If the teams in our side of the bracket look at Week 10 against a really good Parkway team, and watch the game, not the score, it’s got to be a little unsettling to see us as a 24-seed. We believe if we play well, we can compete with a lot of teams around this state.”
This week, aside from a “survive and advance” mentality, the Tigers have an extra dose of incentive.
“If we win, we play at home next week,” said Moore, who said the excitement level is nearly palpable.
“That 1-4 start doesn’t matter any more. Everybody’s 0-0. The guys were flying around out there today, and it’s a fun time to be a football coach at Benton.”
Contact Doug at sbjdoug@gmail.com