Badger football competes against top teams in the state

Last Thursday, the Arkadelphia Badgers took a trip to west Little Rock for their second team camp of the summer. Longtime Class 5A power Pulaski Academy was the host of Thursday’s camp, which also hosted the Shootout of the South 7 on 7 tournament that the Badgers competed in two weeks ago.

This camp normally consists of the top high school football programs in the state of Arkansas. Thursday, there was no question as to whether Pulaski Academy had invited these types of programs.

One of the teams in attendance was El Dorado. The Wildcats are a storied program in the deep southern part of the state, which have won nine overall state titles in its program’s history. Other teams there were Class 6A Jonesboro, and defending Class 3A champions Harding Academy. Arkadelphia would end up facing El Dorado two times during the day.

At this team camp, an offense would run 10 plays and switch sides within a span of 15 minutes. Both the Badgers and Wildcats exchanged touchdowns and defensive stops. As the day went on, Arkadelphia would rest in between rotations and watch many of the other teams play one another. Two of the other teams that the Badgers are familiar with were Ouachita River rival and conference member Malvern and other conference member Bauxite.

Unfortunately, the Leopards and the Badgers did not play one another. Bauxite on the other hand did in fact face Arkadelphia. The Badgers pummeled the miners in both the offense and defense segments, setting up a possible beat down of the miners come October when Arkadelphia visits Bauxite at “The Pit.”

Badger running back Jaishon Davis put on a performance last Thursday. Davis ran through tacklers like they were tackling dummies. He also showed tremendous speeds with breakaway runs. Linebackers Alex Turley and Landon Kuhn also had good outings after being in on just about every tackle on the defensive side of the ball. Quarterback Donovan Whitten looked promising as well, throwing accurate passes while on the run.

Arkadelphia Athletics is now in the two week athletic dead period designated by the Arkansas Activities Association. Badger Football will be back on the gridiron July 12 for practice and will also head back up to Pulaski Academy for another team camp on July 13.