Plenty at stake tonight in 8-man battle between Webbers Falls, Gans

When the two local 8-man District BII-4 football teams, the Webbers Falls Warriors and the Gans Grizzlies, meet in the regular-season finale at 7 tonight at Grizzly Field, both teams have a lot at stake.

For the Warriors (5-4 overall, 2-2 in district play), they already have clinched a playoff berth, but they can clinch as high as the No. 3 seed for next Friday night’s Class B, Division II playoff opener. “(No. 3 spot) is definitely better than a No. 4,” Webbers Falls coach Trent Holt said. “We definitely want to try to be third. We need to win.”

On the other hand, the Grizzlies (3-6, 1-3) need to do two things to give them a shot at grabbing the team’s first playoff berth since 2022. The Grizzlies not only have to beat the Warriors, but beat them by 15 points or more in order to give them a shot at either the No. 3 or No. 4 seed from the district.

“If Copan (3-1 in district play) beats Arkoma (2-2) and we beat Webbers Falls, there would be a three-way tie for third, fourth and fifth place,” Gans coach Gary Hixon said. “It would come down to points. I think we would have to beat Webbers Falls by 15 points (or more), and that’s going to be a big task.”

Hixon is just pleased the Grizzlies have a shot a playoff berth.

“It’s big, especially if want to play in the next part of the season,” Hixon said. “We have to go out prove it to ourselves and play well. We’re going to have to play extremely well to beat Webbers Falls, and try to beat them by 15 points to get into the playoffs.”

Tonight’s home game for the Grizzlies will be their Senior Night, so it’s important for them to win tonight to send their lone senior, Leland Locust, out victorious on his final home game — not to mention how a win would springboard the Grizzlies into the off-season.

“That would be huge for the program,” Hixon said. “It’s been a while since they ended on a positive note. Seeing that we won by forfeit (a 15-0 forfeited win over Wesleyan Christian, which dropped football earlier this season), it would be a two-game winning streak going into the off-season. We only lose one senior, so (winning tonight) is a big deal. It will give us some momentum going into next year.”

As for tonight’s game itself, Holt is concerned with the Grizzlies just lining up and running the ball right at the Warriors.

“Sometimes when they run the ball, they get into the I (formation) and just pound it, then control the clock,” Holt said. “If you get in that kind of a ball game, you don’t have the ball very much — and you need to score when you do (have possession), or you could put yourself behind the 8-ball.”

So, Holt believes his team will need to the sound in all phases.

“We need to block well,” Holt said. “We need to control the line of scrimmage. We need to be able to run the ball. We have to be able to run it to be able to throw it. We’ve been throwing the ball pretty successfully. We think if we can run the ball, and keep them expecting us to run, we can hit them with the pass. We have to play good defense. We have to be good tacklers. We have to be able to fight off blocks (on defense). We just have to beat (get off the blocks of) their man.”

Hixon is concerned with the Warriors winning the battle of physicality with the Grizzlies.

“They’re just big and physical,” Hixon said. Coach Holt is such a good coach. They will be fundamentally sound. That’s what really worries me. They’re good at what they do.”

Hixon believes it will all come down to the mindset of the Grizzlies.

“We have to believe in ourselves that we can play with them at the start of the game,” Hixon said. “If we don’t, it’s going to be a long night for us. When we played Wilson (Henryetta) in our last ball game (on Oct. 23), and we set seven players out, we still scored on them. It was a twopoint ball game going into the second quarter. If we can believe in ourselves, that’s going to be the key for us. Of course, we can’t have mistakes. We can’t hurt ourselves with penalties. In my opinion, we really have to believe in ourselves.”

One thing that will be in the Grizzlies’ favor is they have had two weeks to prepare for the Warriors, since Gans ended up with a 15-0 forfeited win over Wesleyan Christian last week — and essentially had a second bye week during the season.

“The beneficial part was that, while we don’t have a lot of serious injuries, we got the nicks and bruises healed a little bit,” Hixon said. “We got to sit there, relax and watch. We got a chance to get back to some fundamentals that we needed to do as far as blocking and tackling. We got a chance to watch a little film on Webbers Falls to start getting ready for the Warriors. It’s going to be a big task. We’ve put a few more things in that we haven’t shown before. We’ve just been trying to get ready for (the Warriors).”