It’s game day. Kind of. It is benefit/scrimmage game day for the Booneville Bearcat and junior high Bearcat football teams as they will travel to Dardanelle tonight.
The junior high portion of the event will start at 6:15 with the senior high to follow.
Both senior high squads are coming off of successful seasons. The Bearcats were 11-2 a year ago and reached the Class 3A quarterfinals. The Sand Lizards were 10-2, had a first round bye and also reached the quarterfinal round of Class 4A.
Booneville and Dardanelle are hardly strangers. Tonight marks the fourth straight year they have met in the preseason.
The schools have also met 57 times in the regular season with the Bearcats winning 40 of them, for a .702 winning percentage.
Booneville has won the last three meetings – 2017, 2020 and 2021 – but Dardanelle had won the three immediately preceding those, 2014-2016.
Dating back to 1921, the series is one of the longest on record for the Bearcats. Dardanelle won that game 104 years ago 57-0 and the last meeting was a 32-0 win by the Bearcats.
After tonight’s games the respective teams will turn their full focus to season openers on Labor Day weekend.
The Bearcats will leave the state to take on Poteau, Okla., on August 29 while the Sand Lizards, who are ranked number one in Class 4A by Hooten’s Arkansas Football, will travel to the capitol to face Hall Steam.
