RISON - Rison Coach Chris Vereen said before the season started he expected the 8-3A conference to be a very competitive season. Through just the first two weeks of league play, it looks like he was spot on.The Wildcats and McGehee Owls enter the third week of conference play with 1-1 league marks. Every team in the conference has at least two wins overall, and all but two, Barton and Lake Village, have at least one league win. Rison opened conference by knocking off Palestine-Wheatley, 40-35, and then losing a heartbreaker at Dumas last week, 40-34. McGehee, meanwhile, suffered a 21-8 loss at Drew Central to open conference action before bouncing back with a decisive 44-8 win over Lake Village last week. That same Lake Village team came within a touchdown, 14-7, of beating Dumas.The Owls are 2-3 overall, but Vereen warned that record can be a bit deceiving, especially considering their schedule and circumstances. McGehee opened the year with a 49-27 loss at home to Class 4A Hamburg, which is currently sitting at 4-1 and ranked no. 7 in the state by Hooten’s Arkansas Football. McGehee followed that with a 52-12 thumping of Class 4A Star City before suffering a 27-0 loss to another solid Class 4A team, DeWitt.In McGehee’s loss to Drew Central, Vereen noted the Owls did not have five of their starters when the played the Pirates. When those starters returned last week against Lake Village, he said you saw the real McGehee.“That’s the McGehee (against Lake Village) that we thought would be McGehee,” he said.The Owls were selected to finish second behind Fordyce in Hooten’s Arkansas Football preseason 8-3A coaches’ poll. Vereen said the Owls had a few players transfer out of the program after that poll was taken, so they were an unknown going into the season. But after last week’s lopsided win over Lake Village, he said he expects McGehee to be a factor in the conference race going forwa...
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