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By Kary Booher (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
LAMAR – With Class 2’s No. 1-ranked Lamar in a dogfight against. No. 2-ranked Fair Grove, Lamar running back Austin Wilkerson emerged from the halftime locker room ready to do some damage.
“We just had to go,” Wilkerson said. “We can’t give up now.”
The big, physical bruiser of a rusher made sure the Tigers didn’t.
Wilkerson bulled his way for 47 of his team’s first 62 yards after halftime – including a 10-yard run for the tie-breaking touchdown – and kick-started Lamar on the way to a 35-7 victory in the District 4 championship game at Thomas O’Sullivan Stadium.
With it, Lamar (11-0) travels to play at Ava next Saturday as the Tigers keep alive their hopes of a repeat state title and what would be their ninth since 2011.
This on a night when junior quarterback Joel Beshore rushed for 194 yards on 24 carries, scoring on runs of 1 and 44 yards, and also connected with Ian Ngugi on a 41-yard touchdown pass.
Beshore’s TD pass and his second TD run both came in a blur of a second half as Lamar asserted itself – with Wilkerson building the momentum to thwart the upset-minded Eagles (11-1)
“Offensively, we just had to finish drives,” Lamar coach Jared Beshore said. “We were making some small mistakes up front, not getting off the ball. I didn’t really have one player in mind. I think more in terms of schemes, and that just happened to be Austin.”
A 6-foot, 190-pound rusher, Wilkerson gladly did his part on the opening series of the third quarter. Then again, it also set in motion a lot of positives for Lamar, with the offensive line finding a rhythm.
With guards Stetson Wiss and Ryan Davis pulling to hit the edges, the Tigers worn down the Eagles up front. Center Mason Brown, with tackles Jake Polodna and Tucker Torbeck, allowed Lamar to run 27 plays in the second half and control the clock.
“We came together as a team and knew this wasn’t going to be our last day on this field,” Wiss said. “The second half said, ‘We’re here and we’re ready to play.’”
Both teams had reason to be optimistic but also somewhat frustrated at halftime.
Fair Grove marched the opening drive to the Lamar 11-yard line, but the Eagles lost a fumble on a quarterback-running back exchange. Lamar then drove 86 yards in nine plays to score first, that on Beshore’s 1-yard run. That was his fifth run of the drive.
Fair Grove responded with a 10-play, 60-yard drive capped by Kody Stacye’s 2-yard touchdown run at the 2:03 mark of the first quarter. Stacye had runs of 11, 6 and 17 yards on the series.
However, both teams couldn’t reach the end zone before halftime. Fair Grove stopped Lamar at the Fair Grove 15 on a fourth-and-goal, but was forced to punt. And then Lamar drove from the 46 to inside the Fair Grove 20 before stalling. A 24-yard field goal was wide right just before halftime.
Wilkerson then took over in the opening series of the third quarter, and Fair Grove attempted to rally after his TD.
However, a holding penalty on Stacye’s 9-yard run to open Fair Grove’s drive took the Eagles from the 43 back to its own 25. Ultimately, they had to punt.
Lamar then scored on its next three possessions, first on Joel Beshore’s 41-yard strike to Ngugi.
“We’ve had that play in for three weeks,” Joel Beshore said. “We run ‘buck’ a lot. We kept running it a lot tonight and it got us a lot of yards. I told our coach right before the play that one safety was higher than the other. And we hit the safety that was lower on the run.”
It was a tough way to go for Fair Grove, which was enjoying a memorable season. Stacye finished with 13 carries and 74 yards rushing. He also was 8-of-16 passing for 78 yards.
Fair Grove coach Bill Voorhis hopes the Eagles, especially the seniors, remember that they are leaving a legacy that should reverberate throughout the school district.
Friday just happened to belong to Lamar.
“Our kids played hard,” Voorhis said. “But their guys (Lamar) are so well-coached. You can’t have any setbacks if you want to compete against them.”
Next Saturday’s Lamar-Ava game is a rematch of a 2019 quarterfinal won by Ava, which went on to finish as a state runner-up.
