BY NORM BETZ –
The Mena Bearcats welcomed 4A-2 Conference foe Arkadelphia to town for a battle on Senior Night, and left the field with a 2-0 victory. With the win, the Bearcats improved to 4-3 in conference play and 6-5-1 overall on the season.
The first half featured a defensive battle with neither team being able to score a goal. Bearcats senior goalkeeper, Justin Castor, was on top of his game and stopped every shot that came his way in the opening half.
“I’m really proud of these guys, they played hard, and the defense played awesome,” said Bearcats head coach Craig Bentley. “Justin had a good game in goal and continues to improve each game.”
The Bearcats started the second half on fire, with senior Zane Sherrer getting behind the Badgers defense and finding the back of the net in the first minute for his 12th goal of the season. Each team battled for the next 20 minutes, with neither team being able to put a goal on the board.
“Arkadelphia is a really good team,” Bentley said. “Their coach has been there for 20 years and he does a really good job with them over there.”
The game was pretty intense at this point and the play was picking up when Mena junior Dwyan Grinder picked up a yellow card two minutes after the Bearcats took a 1-0 lead.
“We’ve really been concentrating and working hard on checking to the balls on defense, sending the ball up to our strikers and outside guys on offense, and finishing our opportunities,” explained Bentley. “We’ve been doing a really good job at that these last two weeks.”
Sherrer and the Bearcats were not done, as Sherrer scored his second goal of the game and 13th goal of the year with just under 19 minutes to play in the contest.
“We’ve gotten better through the season and these guys take practice very serious and that’s hard because we’ve been practicing for three months,” said Bentley. “I challenged them to fix the things we need to fix so we can make the playoffs and they’ve been doing a good job.”
The Bearcats maintained their two goal lead and picked up the 2-0 shutout and the all important conference win. The Bearcats now turn their attention to finishing strong so they can be one of the four teams playing in the State Tournament.
“We shot ourselves in the foot a little bit when we lost to Centerpoint and Gurdon on penalty kicks earlier this season,” said Bentley. “If we win our next two games against Malvern and Academics Plus we’ll put ourselves in pretty good position to make it to State Playoffs.”
In closing, coach Bentley really bragged about the Bearcats performance and efforts this season. “This team has gotten better, they play hard, and they get along,” said Bentley. “We’re a playoff team and have to do what we need to to make the playoffs. This is a fun group of guys to be around.”
About Author
Jeri Pearson
Jeri is the News Director for Pulse Multi-Media and Editor of The Polk County Pulse. She has 10 years of experience in community focused journalism and has won multiple press association awards.
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