Once again, the Charleston Tigers will go on the road. This time, the Tigers will travel to West Fork for a game that is important to Charleston in its drive to make the playoffs. Although West Fork is winless on the conference season, it is not a game that Charleston can afford to take lightly.
Charleston will have to regroup from another heart-breaking loss against conference leader Booneville. The Tigers played hard and played the Bearcats tough all night, but made a few crucial errors that cost them the football game.
After having evaluated his team’s performance, Charleston coach Ricky May said the Tigers played hard and played well, but a couple of defensive breakdowns cost the Tigers Friday night against Booneville. “On defense a couple of times we were out of position and it really cost us. On offense we didn’t get the ball many times in the second half and we started our two drives off first and 15, and you can’t do that against a good football team.”
West Fork (0-8, 0-5) has lost eight straight, losing most recently at Paris last week. They have scored 51 points on the season and have given up 312. West Fork is ranked 41st in 3A according to Max Preps.
With that said, this is a game that Charleston cannot take for granted. With two weeks to go in the regular season, the Tigers need to win this week before they begin thinking about Lamar in week ten. While the Tigers will be in West Fork Friday night, another important conference game will be taking place in Mansfield. The Mansfield Tigers will host Cedarville, and a Cedarville win combined with a Charleston win will prevent Charleston from ending in a potential conference tie. Mansfield owns the tie breaker over Charleston by virtue of its win over Charleston earlier in the season. in short, Charleston does not want to be tied with Mansfield in the loss column at the end of the season.
If Charleston can win this week and again at home the following week against Lamar, the Tigers would finish second in the conference and would likely host a first round playoff game, probably against a four seed.
So, for the Tigers, this is an important two week stretch that begins with taking care of business at West Fork. “We are going to approach this game like any other and hopefully get as many ready for the playoffs as we can. At the same time, we are definitely going to protect them (Charleston players against possible injury). There is no tomorrow from this point for us. We just need to make sure we win out and take care of business and hope for a little help (from other games around the conference).”
The conference standings heading into week nine for playoff contending teams are:
Booneville 5-0
Lamar 4-1
Charleston 3-2
Cedarville 3-2
Greenland 2-3
Mansfield 2-3
One of these teams will not make the playoffs. A lot will be determined starting this Friday. Each team will be fighting for valuable wins in conference play over the next two weeks.
Kickoff at West Fork is 7 p.m. this Friday. Charleston needs its loyal fans to make the trip to northwest Arkansas to support their Tigers!
