Note to Our Readers: The following story was sourced in its entirety from Mr. Glenn Parrish, Director of Communications, Booneville School District. Mr. Parrish is a RNN Sports contributor, and we thank him for bringing this story to our readers.
Booneville and Osceola probably have not considered scheduling one another. After all they are separated by roughly five hours.
Nevertheless, the schools are meeting for the third time in five years Friday night in Osceola for a Class 3A quarterfinal game.
Two years ago Osceola saw its season end in a second round game in Booneville, ironically the day after Thanksgiving due to an expanded playoffs created by the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2018 the Bearcats beat the Seminoles in the Class 3A state title game in War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock.
Friday will mark the second meeting between the two schools in Mississippi County – the first was a second round game in 2008.
Osceola, the top seed out of the 3A-3 reached the quarterfinals by beating Perryville 20-14 in the opening round, and smashing Camden Harmony Grove 48-7 last week.
The Bearcats, second seeded from the 3A-1, reached the round of eight by taking down Junction City 42-14 in the opener and Smackover 60-14 last week.
They did so with Dax Goff and Cody Elliott both scoring four touchdowns.
On the way to eight rushing touchdowns, the Bearcats (10-2) ran for 547 yards in the first meeting between the schools.
Goff ran 18 times for 208 yards and now has 1,892 yards on the season, the second most in school history. Goff needs 76 yards for the rushing record and, obviously, 108 to reach 2,000.
Going into Friday’s game Elliott needed 44 yards to become the third 1,000-yard rusher for the Bearcats this season. He ran 16 times for 179 yards.
Though he carried for 72 yards Trace Hall did not reach the end zone, at least offensively. Hall did return one of his two interceptions 51 yards for a touchdown which would be the final touchdown of the night.
Because Smackover returned two kickoffs for touchdowns Hall’s pick six meant there were scores in all three phases of the game.
