Sports

ZEBRAS EMERGE FROM BYE WITH UNCERTAINTIES

By Josh Tinker
Thursday, November 20, 2008 10:01 AM CST

Commercial Sports Editor

Bobby Bolding is ready to play football. He just hopes his team is as ready as he is.

After a week without football, Bolding’s Pine Bluff Zebras return to action Friday night when they host Watson Chapel in the second round of the playoffs. Pine Bluff didn’t play last week because it got a bye for the opening round of the postseason by finishing in a three-way tie for first place in the 6A-South Conference.

While Bolding is thankful for the bye week because it let a few injured players heal up, the second-year Pine Bluff coach said his team comes out of it with more questions than answers.

“You would think they (the players) would be real excited, because I am,” Bolding said. “I never lost until last year (when Pine Bluff finished 2-7-1). So I was really hungry after getting my brains beat in last year, and excited about playoff time. I don’t know if our mentality is it’s over, it was a good year or it’s time to play. I don’t know. I won’t know until Friday.”

Bolding thinks this mentality comes from a lack of playoff experience. Pine Bluff hasn’t won a playoff game since 2003, when it lost to Little Rock Central in the semifinals, and the Zebras haven’t made the playoffs since 2005. While past Pine Bluff teams were accustomed to winning state championships, his current crop of players aren’t accustomed to playing deep into November.

A late-season lull is something Bolding said he’s seen brewing for several weeks now.

“The last three weeks of the season, I don’t think we’ve played well in any phase of the game,” Bolding said.

Bolding has been especially disappointed with the play of his offense. Though the Zebras have averaged 33 points per game during the last month, Bolding said his team lost much of the crispness and big-play potential it had in the early stages of the season. The Zebras averaged 45 points per game the season’s first six games.

“(Big plays) aren’t something we’ve done here lately,” Bolding said. “I think we’ve been complacent. You make big plays. They’re not lucky. I don’t believe in luck in football. Big plays aren’t because of luck, they’re because people are playing hard and doing something that hurts the defense. The defense responds to it, and it opens up something big.

“We haven’t done the little things to open up the big things. It’s been a hunt-and-peck kind of deal for us. We’ve got to get back to running an offense again, and with this two-week layoff, I don’t know.”

Kickoff against the Wildcats is set for 7:30 Friday at Jordan Stadium.

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