All business for WMHS

All business for WMHS

Is Jacksonville a trap game?

WM School District The celebration and savoring are over for the West Memphis Blue Devils and it's time for them to take a business trip.

The 40-38 win over Jonesboro last week turned the town on its ears for sure, but the win won't mean as much if the Blue Devils don't take care of business Friday night for their next biggest-game-ofthe- season at Jacksonville.

Kickoff is set for 7 p.m.

The Jonesboro victory put the Blue Devils (5-2 overall, 3-1 in the 6A-East Conference) in a four-way tie for first place in the conference and in prime position to host a firstround state playoff game, if not win the league outright and earn a first-round bye.

But all of that is predicated on beating the newlynamed Jacksonville team, the Titans.

'As coaches you are always concerned about let-downs after big victories,' said West Memphis head coach Billy Elmore.

'You stress this to the kids, but it's hard to fight. We played a great game last week, but at a certain point you've got to move on. It's for the fans to relish. It's for the team to get ready for Friday night.'

West Memphis will have to be especially wary of Jacksonville (2-5, 1-3) eve though it came from behind in the fourth quarter to beat cellar-dwellar Little Rock Hall last week 32-28.

The team's new nickname was necessitated because of the merge with North Pulaski.

The Titans lost their starting quarterback, Rowdy Weathers, to injury earlier this season and they have now turned to H.D. Martin, who reportedly has 4.6 speed in the 40-yard dash.

'He's really fast,' Elmore said of Martin. 'He's a scramble guy and on film Jacksonville has real good concepts on offense behind him. They run some routes that are really difficult to defend. But we've had to work a lot of scramble drills in practice.'

Offensively, the Blue Devils have seen steady progression from junior quarterback Amaurius Stinnett, who quite possibly had his best game last week against Jonesboro.

He engineered a 97-yard drive that featured four plays for 20 yards or more that gave the Blue Devils their first lead (27-24) over Jonesboro.

Stinnett also marched the unit 68 yards in the final minute without a timeout for the winning score, which was a 19-yard touchdown pass to Jonathan Craig on the final play of the game.

'A lot of things he wasn't good at earlier in the year he's starting to grasp now,' Elmore said of his signalcaller. 'There's a difference between knowing what to do on a chalk board and then going out and doing it live in front of an audience. The composure part of it he's really getting there. That last drive (against Jonesboro) was really solid.'

By Billy Woods