CEDARVILLE FORFEIT IS 4TH FOR PROGRAM

Friday’s scheduled game between Booneville and Cedarville was a forfeit with a win declared for the Bearcats to close the regular season 8-2 and 6-1 in Conference 3A-4.

Cedarville, who was the home team, absorbed the loss on the stormy night in Crawford County and fell to 2-8 to end its season.

The forfeit came after the Bearcats spent a good portion of the afternoon and early evening in hopes of getting
what was quickly a saturated Glen Wisley Field (shown).

Senior night festivities for the Pirates were set to start about 5:25 p.m. but the only person in the on the filed was an adult in rain gear and carrying an umbrella while walking across the middle of the field.

Before the kickoff, already pushed forward to 6 p.m. as a defensive tactic against the long forecast storm, Pirate officials opened the school’s safe room.

At that point the best hope was an 8 p.m. or later starting time. But, by 7 p.m. the game had been called with Cedarville opting to forfeit.

Doing so meant the Bearcats were awarded a forfeit for the second straight season.

In 2021 it was Danville, citing low numbers due to injuries, who opted to take a loss.

In that instance the Bearcats were permitted to find a replacement game by the Arkansas Activities Association and ultimately made a trip to Timpson, Texas.

Historically, the forfeited win is the fourth the program has accepted. However, unlike the last two, the first two games were in progress when the forfeit was declared.

Oddly, three of the four games, have now been in the final game on a schedule.

The first came in a game in 1922 with Magazine the opponent and occurred on Thanksgiving Day – the first Thanksgiving day game for the program.

A complaint early in the game about whether a punted ball went into the end zone, as was ruled, was the impetus for the dispute.

The contention was the ball was not in the end zone and advanced into the end zone for six points – a punt cannot be advanced in that scenario today – but officials placed the ball on the 20 as a touchback.

The next play was a 60-yard completion from Arthur Sloan to Gordon Hardin and Magazine’s coach, who was referred to as Professor Scott, took his team from the field.

In 1931 it was Pars in town and the forfeit occurred after three quarters of play.

By then the Bearcats led 27-0. Rex Dempsey had run for 102 yards and Homecoming Queen Aleyne Cauthron.

According to a Paris Express report the Paris sideline and coach Ross Edwards were concerned about two “mysterious injuries” blamed on uncalled offside penalties. Those occurred in the first quarter, a quarter the story asserts was dominated by Paris.

It was a third injury, after halftime, which the paper described as “crippling” to the team while spurred the Eagles to call it a day, but again only after three quarters of play.