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SUNDAY, AUGUST 26, 2018 | THREE RIVERS EDITION OF THE ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE FOOTBALL PREVIEW
NEWPORT GREYHOUNDS
Same high aspirations exist for Greyhounds
Newport senior wide receiver J.T. Haynes, left, tries to make a catch over junior Andrew Pitts.
STACI VANDAGRIFF/THREE RIVERS EDITION
BY DONNA LAMPKIN STEPHENS
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Expectations are always high at New- port, and the 2018 football season is no exception.
“A competitive conference season and a long run in the playoffs,” Greyhound coach Mark Hindsley said were his expecta- tions for the season.
At Newport, that’s the norm.
Before winning just two games in 2015, the Greyhounds put together the longest postseason streak in Arkansas history, reaching the playoffs every year from 1987 to 2014. But after a drop from Class 4A to Class 3A in 2016, they went 11-3, one of the best records in school history, as they reached the Class 3A state semifinals, where they fell to Prescott, the eventual champion, 41-8.
In 2017, they finished 8-4 with a run to the second round of the Class 3A state playoffs.
“A lot of teams in the state would kill to be 8-4,” Hindsley said. “But when people ask what we want to achieve, it’s to go deep in the playoffs. We always want to go to Thanksgiving Day practice, and we can only do that when we take care of things in the conference.”
Therefore, 2017 was a bit of a rocky season compared to the Greyhounds’ usual expectations. Newport went undefeated through non- conference play, beating Gosnell, 15-8; Greene
County Tech, 47-15; and Lonoke, 35-8.
But the Greyhounds were upset by Hoxie in their 3A-3 Conference opener, 28-7. They then knocked off Walnut Ridge, 49-6, before falling at Piggott, 51-12. Newport rebounded with back-to-back wins over Corning, 64-0, and Rivercrest, 28-14, before losing its third
conference game to Osceola, 41-14.
“Those losses put us in a bind,” Hindsley said. “We hit some speed bumps against Hoxie and Piggott — they were our kryptonite. They were bigger. It was a size thing. They were big
and real physical up front.”
The Greyhounds rallied, though, to tie for
fourth in the league (4-3) with a 49-12 win over Manila that earned them the No. 5 seed for the playoffs. They traveled to Glen Rose, winner of the 3A-5, for the first round and escaped with a 28-27 decision to advance to the second round
NEWPORT GREYHOUNDS
AUG. 31 ...................................@POTTSVILLE SEPT. 7 ................... @GREENE COUNTY TECH SEPT. 14 .......................................... LONOKE SEPT. 21 ........................... @WALNUT RIDGE* SEPT. 28 .........................................@HOXIE* OCT. 5 .................................... HARRISBURG* OCT. 12 ...........................................MANILA* OCT. 19 ......................................@CORNING* OCT. 26 .......................................@PIGGOTT* NOV. 2 .......................................... OSCEOLA*
*DENOTES CONFERENCE GAMES
at McGehee, second from the 3A-6. Newport led the Owls, 6-0, before falling, 20-6.
“We knew going in we had to be road war- riors in the playoffs,” Hindsley said. “McGehee was just strong. They are traditionally good, and we went down there and had a good start to the game, but after one punt return they took back, we never could recover. Late-game slip-ups at McGehee that we couldn’t recover from ended our season.
“Those three conference games, we couldn’t finish. The plan this season is to finish. No telling what we could’ve done if we had finished last year.”
McGehee went on to beat Atkins in the quarterfinals before falling to Rivercrest, which knocked off Junction City in the state cham- pionship game at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock, 48-14.
Rivercrest finished 13-2 with the state title before moving up to Class 4A this fall.
Hindsley said the Greyhounds’ win over the Colts was one of the highlights of the season.
“Rivercrest is Rivercrest — athletic, com- petitive,” he said. “That was the best our kids got ready to play all year. They were fired up. They weren’t intimidated. They knew they were going in to meet the big fish in our conference, and we went after them.
“Losing them out of this conference takes a good team out of it.”
For 2018, 14 starters return to run the
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