The Conway Wampus Cats are headed back to the Class 6A state championship game for the third consecutive year.
Conway beat Springdale Har-Ber 1-0 in the state semifinals Saturday at Fort Smith Southside High School. The Wampus Cats will play Springdale for the state championship Friday at noon at Estes Stadium on the campus of the University of Central Arkansas in Conway.
Conway is the defending state champion. The Wampus Cats lost in the finals during the 2021 season.
Conway’s Will Childers scored the game’s only goal less than three minutes into the match.
Childers scored on a one-on-one play with a defender after the ball got loose as it was put in over the top of the defense. HIs shot went into the bottom right corner of the net.
From there, the Wampus Cats defense stood up with keeper Jackson Tucker making a save late in the game.
“It was a ball that lofted into the box, and Jackson just waved everybody off and caught it pretty handily,” Conway coach Matthew Page said. “Our defense starts with Jackson. He saved a couple of shots earlier in the game, shots that could have gone in with somebody else. Our defense does such a great job. We play a different type of defense. We’re in a diamond defense in the back. It’s a concoction I came up with 14 years ago. I’ve been running it ever since.
“Our guys know it by heart now. They do a really good job of doing their job. They showed up big for us again.”
Mark Buffalo is the sports editor of the Log Cabin Democrat and can be reached at mbuffalo@thecabin.net.
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