PEA RIDGE (KFSM) - "We’re a freight train right now."
Pea Ridge is the Slim Chickens Team of the Week, so now that train has some fuel. But after an 0-3 start to the season, that wasn’t exactly the case, says senior Hagen Schader.
"We were obviously a little down."
"The morale was down, we had to get some enthusiasm," admits Brayden Ralph.
The locker room needed work, says senior Tate Busey.
"Belief. We had to believe in ourselves, keep ourselves up."
"Yeah we got good completion, which in turn made us way better," adds Ralph.
That tough non conference was by design, says head coach Stephen Neal.
"We knew we had scheduled some top notch talent and some top notch teams, with Harrison, Maumelle, and Farmington. So we knew once we could get back into some teams that we could compete better against, we figured we could go on a roll."
Once conference play started, the switch flipped, And the Blackhawks haven’t lost since.
"It would’ve been really easy, once conference play began, to just chuck it all away, and our kids didn’t do that," says Neal.
"One thing that really picked up coming into the conference, our enthusiasm’s really picked up," adds Ralph.
"They knew if they would just keep the hope, they would keep working hard and good things would happen, and good things have happened since then,' says Neal.
The Blackhawks averaged just 8 points per non-conference game. In 4A-1 play, that number is 49.
"Yeah it just shot our confidence way up and now we’re flying high."
Pea Ridge will look to keep rolling this Friday, when they travel to Berryville.