A grEEEat defense is the best offense
In a battle of the best teams from across Arkadelphia, the EEEs represented Ouachita on the other side of the street, taking on the Alpha Z’s to see who would claim the Battle of the Ravine flag football trophy.
“We always love to come together as sisters and have fun! We love spending the time together and being competitive. We love to win, but we also really love getting to know each other better,” said Emily Long, a senior business major from Hot Springs.
Both teams boasted strong offenses but especially tough defenses. The Henderson team was originally a co-ed group that slimmed down to only female players for the game. Since they were a co-ed team, the game was played with a guy’s intramural ball instead of the size the girls had used for the whole year. Although they had to adjust to this, both teams marched down field efficiently.
This is where the tough defense came into play. Several times the Henderson team made it into the red zone, but the EEEs didn’t allow them to move an inch once there. Featuring the top players from both of the EEE teams, this team was made to be tough.
Quarterback Brittany McElroy showed off an incredibly strong arm and guided the team down field over and over during the game, but the much larger Henderson team stopped them from scoring every time.
At halftime, the score was 0-0, and the trend of strong defenses continued. Much like the current presidential campaigns, this game featured two tough groups pushing back and forth without giving up much ground. In the final seconds of the fourth quarter, the score was still 0-0. As the game dwindled down into the last seconds, the Alpha Z’s ran it in for a touchdown to take the lead and win 6-0.
The EEEs may have lost the game, but they realized they played a very tough team close all the way till the end, and they had fun doing it.
“This season of football was my favorite because I finally was on a team that made it to the championship,” said Bekah Davis, a senior mass communications major from Benton. “Going into the championship, we were playing HSU’s team, which is typically co-ed; they play with a boy-sized football, and it was their home turf. We played our hearts out, got some turf burns and ultimately came up short in the last seconds of the game. But I’m proud of our team, and to me, we won because we go to OBU! I would encourage every girl to go play! You’ll regret it if you don’t.”
By Ian Craft, Sports Editor
Betas run out of time in Ravine battle
Ouachita versus Henderson State. Just about everyone from this area knows about the intense rivalry that has been around for decades. When you hear “Battle of the Ravine,” you know there is going to be a highly competitive match between Ouachita and Henderson State, regardless of the sport. For the men’s intramural flag football version of “Battle of the Ravine,” it was no different.
The respective flag football champions from Ouachita and Henderson State battled it out last Thursday to see who was the king of Arkadelphia. Henderson had home-field advantage.
It was your typical Battle of the Ravine game: highly competitive. The teams were determined not to lose to their arch nemesis. Some trash talking took place here and there, as well as some pushing and shoving. Everything you’d expect in a rivalry came into play.
Henderson started the game with momentum, scoring on its opening possession. Ouachita couldn’t get anything going on their first series, and the Reddies then scored again on their next possession, jumping out to a quick 14-0 lead. Ouachita fought back, scoring its next possession, making it 14-7. In the end, the gap was just too big for Ouachita to overcome, and Henderson defeated the Tigers by a final score of 19-13.
Zachary Street, a sophomore biology major from Nacogdoches, Texas, was one of the players in the championship game. He discussed what it was like being able to represent his school in the championship game.
“I really enjoyed it. It was a lot of fun. It definitely was the best of the best. We had competition with them just like at OBU, but you could tell they were definitely the best of the best. They got the ball first and scored on us, then we threw an interception and they ran it back for a pick six, so it didn’t start off great. Then after halftime we scored first, so we thought we could get in it. We stopped them, then thought we could score and came close but didn’t make it. At the end I felt like we were coming back, I mean, 13-19 is pretty close, so if we had one score, we would have been there. If we only had more time,” Street said.
Though the Tigers didn’t snag the title this year, the ongoing Battle of the Ravine–in various sports–will continue.
By Marcellus Hill, Sports Writer
