Ross: Greenwood the team to beat

5A-West to be rugged once again

— For the first time in two years, the Siloam Springs Panthers will play four 5AWest Conference games on their home field at Glenn W. Black Stadium.

The Panthers played three home conference games in both 2009 and 2010.

“We feel like we’ve got a favorable schedule this year,” head coach Bryan Ross said. “We’ve got four conference home games. The last two years, with the way the schedule has been, of the 14 conference games we’ve played, we’ve only been home for six of them.

“This is the year we get four at home and three away. I think that’s a big deal to get that extra game.”

Four of Siloam Springs first six games of 2011 are on the road.

The Panthers open the season at home Sept. 2 against Claremore (Okla.) Sequoyah. Siloam Springs travels to Rogers Heritage on Sept. 9, and treks up Arkansas Hwy 59 on Sept. 16 to face country rival Gentry on Sept. 16.

The Panthers will open the 5A-West slate on the road at Greenwood on Sept. 23.

After three straight weeks on the road, Siloam Springs returns home for homecoming on Sept. 30 against Harrison.

The Panthers will takeback to the road on Oct. 7 in the longest trip of the season to Vilonia in central Arkansas.

Greenbrier visits Glenn W. Black Stadium on Oct. 14.

The Panthers’ final road trip of the regular season is Oct. 21 at Huntsville.

Siloam Springs hosts Alma on Oct. 28, and senior night will be Nov. 4 against Morrilton.

“I think the 5A-West is pretty wide open,” Ross said.

“I think it was last year too.

Any given game somebody can beat someone else.”

Siloam Springs started last season 1-0 in 5A-West play after knocking off eventualconference champion and state champion Greenwood.

The Panthers also won at conference runner-up Greenbrier. But the team dropped a disappointing road loss at Harrison, lost to Vilonia at home and ended the season with road losses at Alma and at Morrilton.

“If you had a magic formula and knew all the answers ... there’s just really no way to explain it,” Ross said. “Every group is different. Every year you’ve got a different mix of kids. You coach to win. You do what you think you have to do to give your kids a chance to win. Usually it comes downto which team is going to make the fewest mistakes. If you go back and look, obviously the games we won, the upsets of Greenwood and Greenbrier, we didn’t make many mistakes.

“The games that we lost you can look at several mistakes. In our conference there’s a fine line between winning and losing. We know in our conference it’s going to come down to fourth quarter, and it’s going to be who executes and who’s at their best when the game is on the line.”

Ross said he expects Greenwood to be the team to be the favorite again inthe 5A-West.

“Until somebody takes it away from them I think you’d have to say Greenwood is the team to beat,” he said.

Ross said Alma’s tradition will make the Airedales a dangerous team. Greenbrier features the top player in the conference in quarterback Neal Burcham. Vilonia has several players back from last year’s playoff team.

Morrilton, which only won three games in 2010, hung 52 points on the Panthers in the season finale.

“I know they’ll have the most speed in the confer-ence,” Ross said of Morrilton. “Coach (Cody McNabb) does a good job. They got a lot better as the year went on last year.”

Harrison has a new coach in former Siloam Springs player and assistant Chad Harbison. Former Harrison coach Tommy Tice recently accepted the head coaching position at Huntsville.

“There’s changes but still familiarity,” Ross said. “Bottom line is football is football. For the mostpart it goes back to blocking at tackling. I heard an old coach talking about different schemes and somebody said ‘Bottom line is somebody’s just got to whip somebody else.’ Ultimately that’s what it comes back to. You can line up in all sorts of things and run all sorts of things, but in the end it comes back to whose players are better.”

Sports, Pages 54 on 08/31/2011