Going into the final week of the 2023 regular season, 3A football programs around the state are starting to figure things out for the State Playoffs. Some have made the cut, some are still battling for positioning, and others already out and are preparing to regroup for the 2024 season. But the final week of the regular season is more than just a precursor to the State Playoffs, it’s rivalry week. For the 3A-1, the 2023 rivalry week could be much bigger than anyone expected earlier in the season. The final weeks slate will be Mansfield versus Hackett, Charleston versus Lavaca, West Fork versus Greenland, and Booneville versus Cedarville. It doesn’t get better than that folks.
Most everyone’s preseason predictions have been confirmed as the Booneville Bearcats will cruise into the State Playoffs as the 3A-1 Champions and a 1Seed. The Bearcats have rolled through their conference schedule outscoring opponents 239-56. No conference opponent came with two scores of Booneville as the Bearcats averaged 40 points per game and only allowed an average of 9 points per game scored against them in conference play. The closest anyone got to Booneville was the Charleston Tigers who put 15 points on the Bearcats, but even the 2022 defending State Champions couldn’t shut down the Bearcats as Booneville walked out of Charleston with a 25-15 victory. The lone team left on the schedule to try and stop the Bearcats State Championship goal is the Cedarville Pirates. Unfortunately, Cedarville has had a rough go at it this season. With low numbers on their roster and a 1-8 overall record on the season, the Pirates will likely fall to the mighty Bearcats sending Booneville to the Playoffs as the undisputed and undefeated 3A-1 Champions.
Although Booneville and Cedarville are not what some would call a rivalry, the rest of the 3A-1 will be a heaping brew of absolute bad-blood games on Friday, November 3rd. The Battle of Highway 22 has been a brew of distain for quite some time. If you look at the history of Charleston versus Lavaca, it might look like a one-sided affair in Charleston’s favor. The Tigers have downright washed over Lavaca since the Golden Arrows returned to the 3A-1 in 2020. But don’t let the numbers fool you, this is still a heated rivalry between the two Highway 22 programs. Win or lose, Charleston will go into the game as the conferences runner-up behind Booneville and go into the State Playoffs as a respected 2Seed. The Tigers are a little banged up after close games against Mansfield and West Fork while falling short against Booneville between their Tiger tussles, but this is Charleston we’re talking about, they’ll definitely be ready to play. Lavaca’s high-end offense is looking to break a two-game losing streak after being slammed by Mansfield and Booneville with a combined score of 89-25. The Golden Arrows may wind up with the 5Seed going into the Playoffs, but if they can upend Charleston’s parade along the way, they’ll have plenty of excitement and momentum on their side going into Round1.
The final 3A-1 rivalry to discuss may actually be the most exciting one of the 3A-1, maybe even in the state. Not much hype goes into a game for the 3Seed, but when that game happens to be Mansfield versus Hackett, you can expect the excitement levels to go through the roof. Mansfield won the Scott County rivalry over Waldron and Hackett was victorious against Lavaca for the new Sebastian County trophy. But with Mansfield being in both Scott and Sebastian County, the overall bragging rights to Sebastian County and a 3Seed in the Playoffs could make this game huge for both teams. Each program will go into this heated rivalry with a 4-2 conference record, a new head coach at the helm, and the 3Seed with a first-round home game in the State Playoffs on the line. Both programs’ losses came against Charleston and Booneville, but each team also hung 30+ points on the rest of their conference opponents. After their losses to the top two teams in the conference, other conferences threw the word overrated out a lot about these two programs. If you look at each teams’ stats though, you’ll realize that both very well may be underrated in the long run. The Tigers scoreboard stats show a prolific combined score of 202-89 in conference play compared to Hackett’s 187-157. With Mansfield and Hackett looking relatively even across the board, even the smallest advantage might prove to be huge. The Hornets will have one thing in their rivalry game against the Tigers that Mansfield won’t, home-field turf. The last time Mansfield played the Hornets on their own turf in 2021, the Hornets swarmed away with a 34-6 victory. Hackett’s offense is no doubt very good, but the Tigers have the number two defense in overall points allowed having only allowed 104 points in their nine games up to this point. With both teams proving that they have the ability to make big plays on offense at any time and defenses stout enough to hold off any type of strike, this will most likely be an unstoppable force versus an immovable object type of game.
With the 3A-1 bosting some big-time games, fans will also be eyeing games in the 3A-4 and 3A-6 this upcoming Friday. The Playoff bracket will pit Booneville against the 3A-6’s 5Seed and Charleston against the 3A-6’s 4Seed. The intriguing section of the bracket though is in the 3A-4. Glen Rose has won the crown of the 3A-4, but the spot for the 2Seed has yet to be determined. The 2Seed and 3Seed of the 3A-4 will come down to one game and either way you shake it, it’ll have huge implications for the Mansfield versus Hackett game. The Bismarck Lions are currently tied with the Centerpoint Knights with both teams having a 5-1 record in the 3A-6. The tiebreaker will be a head-to-head matchup that will determine who the 2Seed and 3Seed represent the 3A-6 in the State Playoffs. The victor will host the 3A-1’s 4Seed which will be the loser of the Mansfield versus Hackett game. The loser of the Bismarck versus Centerpoint game will travel to the 3A-1’s 3Seed which will be the winner of the Mansfield versus Hackett game. Either way you look at the scenario, these four teams have a lot on the line in the final week of the regular season.
