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After winning the opening coin toss and electing to receive the football to begin Friday’s 8-3A Conference contest between the Barton Bears and the visiting Drew Central Pirates, the Pirates would seem to set the tone on how the contest would play out against the Bears after a quick 58-pass from Tre’Bennett Fuller to Jeremiah Bodiford for a touchdown with a mere 50 seconds ticked away on the game clock.
That feeling would quickly turn into a bad dream for the Pirates in the form of Sophomore Quinteryon Wilson who would take the Pirate kickoff back 72 yards for the first of his five touchdowns on the night.
The extra point was not successful with the Pirates maintaining a 7-6 lead.
Both defenses would be able to keep the offenses at bay for the remainder of the quarter and for the first drive of the second quarter for the Pirates.
On the first official drive for Barton in the second quarter, the Bears would need 52 yards, and would achieve that yardage in three plays, highlighted by a 23-yard run to the Pirate 29 by Madison Milton followed by a 29-yard touchdown reception from Jack Sexton to Wilson to give the Bears a 12-7 advantage after the missed extra point.
The Pirates would move the ball into Bear territory on their next drive, the drive would end on a turnover after Christian Williams recovered a Pirate fumble at the Bear 31.
Barton would take advantage of the turnover to add more points on the board before the end of the half.
After driving into Pirate territory, Sexton would connect with Qulan Green to move the ball to the 13 followed by a penalty against the Pirates for an extra five yards to the eight.
Sextoon would once again connect with Wilson for the score followed by a completion to Green to add the two-point conversion to put the Bears up 20-7 at the half.
The Bears would receive the ball to start the second half of play and would begin the half with good field position, starting at the Pirate 47 after falling on the onside kick.
Barton would move down to the five yard line, but Sexton’s pass would be intercepted in the endzone by Bodiford for a Pirate touchback.
After Fuller’s first pass fell incomplete on the first play of the drive, his next pass would be intercepted at the Pirate 34 by Calvin Jones, who took the ball back 34-yards for the defensive score to increase the lead to 26-7.
The Pirates would get back on the board on their next drive after Fuller would connect with Blake Chandler for a 62-yard touchdown pass.
Hunter Griffin added the extra point to cut the lead to 26-14 with 8:50 remaining in the third quarter.
The Pirate defense would force Barton to punt on the next drive with Drew Central taking ove on their own 15 after the punt.
On the first play of the drive, the Pirates would fumble the ball at their own 14 being recovered by Barton’s Andrew Boals.
Barton would drive down to the six yard line when Wilson would cover the six yards for his fourth touchdown of the contest.
Cornell Sims added the extra point to put the score at 33-14.
Drew Central’s next drive would extend into the fourth quarter with the Pirates driving down to the Barton one yardline.
After being pushed back to the three, Fuller would connect with Chandler for the second time in the game for the Pirate touchdown to cut the lead to 33-20.
Barton would answer the Pirate score on the next drive with WIlson taking the ball in from the Pirate five for his fifth touchdown of the contest for the 39-20 lead.
Drew Central would get a final score in the game with 31 seconds remaining after Fuller connected with Zae Bullard for a seven-yard score to set up the final score of 39-26.
For Barton, the Bears improved to 3-5 overall and 1-4 in conference play with the Pirates falling to 3-5 overall and 2-3 in conference play.
The Pirates, who seemed to be heading for probably their highest playoff seeding just a couple of weeks ago, now with the loss to Barton their playoff hopes have hit a stumbling block.
Although not mathematically eliminated, the Pirates will now have to at least win one of the final two contests of the season to be in the playoff discussion.
Fordyce currently is at the top of the conference standings with a 4-1 record with Dumas (4-1) in second with their only loss coming last week to Fordyce. McGehee is sitting at third with a 3-2 record with their losses coming to Drew Central and Palestine-Wheatley.
Filling spots 4-7 are Palestine-Wheatley, Lake Village, Rison, and Drew Central, with all four teams having 2-3 conference records.
Barton is last in the conference with a 1-4 conference record.
With the bottom four each having 2-3 records, Lake Village holds the current advantage over Rison, who they defeated last Friday, with Rison having defeated Palestine-Wheatley and Drew Central.
The Pirates have defeated McGhee and Lake Village.
The Pirates have two remaining regular season contests on the schedule with Palestine-Wheatley coming to Mike Pennington Stadium on Friday night at 7 pm, and the final contest on Thursday, November 6 on the road in Dumas.
