Lions Ended Season Friday Night

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

— The fog and a chill in the air at Lion Field may have been prophetic for the Lions Friday night as they dropped their second playoff game to the Heber Springs Panthers 42-7.

Another omen may have been the injury of Lion quarterback Colt Moorman who suffered a repeatinjury to his ankle on the first play of the game. Later the Lions rushing leader Michael Croasdell sat out the second half with a neck injury.

Daily Record reporter Tom Glave noted in his report that the Panther’s Braylon Mitchell, who has committed to Arkansas, rushed for 260 yards. TheLions managed 162 yards on the ground, 104 of them before Croasdell suffered his injury.

The Panthers’ other scores came on three long pass receptions and two others by rushing.

Gravette’s TD came on a 68 yard scamper by Croasdell in the first quarter and Montee’s toe was accuratefor the extra point.

Colt Davis, Gravette quarterback, hit 8 of 24 passes for 113 total yards; he was intercepted only once.

Eden snared 3 passes for 26 yards, O’Brien 2 for 33, Strezelecki 1 for 30, Hendren 1 for 25, Croasdell 1 for 14 and Tyner 1 for 10.

The Lions had 15 firstdowns but were unable to punch the ball across. They lost 2 of 3 fumbles and were penalized only once for 15 yards. Montee booted four punts for a 40.3 average.

As Glave wrote in the Daily Record, quoting Lion coach Bill Harrelson, “That Mitchell kid is everything he’s advertised to be, that’s for sure. Their offensiveline played well all night. They had holes for him to run through all night.”

The Lions, who ended the season 9-3, topped Valley View 12-7 in their opening playoff game before dropping the game to Heber Springs. The Panthers will play 4-A3 conference champion Osceola this week.

Sports, Pages 10 on 11/25/2009