Last Friday morning, Little Rock Christian senior running back Michael Dyer committed to play football at Auburn.
Friday night, Dyer ran for 221 yards and scored five touchdowns to lead the Warriors to a 42-21 win over Pulaski Academy to earn the 5A-Southwest’s No. 4 seed into the Class 5A state playoffs.
Friday night, at Sam Smith Stadium, Dyer will lead Little Rock Christian onto the field to face Forrest City, the No. 1 seed from the 5A-East in first-round state playoff action.
Little Rock Christian finished 7-3 overall while the Mustangs used an eight-game win streak to put together an 8-2 season, the best for a Mustang team since the 1985 season.
The Mustangs, after losing their season opener to West Memphis, reeled off eight consecutive victories, before falling to Blytheville 28-12 Friday night in the final regular season conference game.
The Mustangs are hosting a state playoff game for the first time since the 1990 season, after winning the school’s first outright football conference title in 23 years.
Dyer is rated the No. 1 high school running back in the nation by ESPN, No. 2 by Scout and No. 3 by Rivals.
He is the all-time leading rusher in Arkansas prep football history with 7,566 career rushing yards and 74 touchdowns.
A win over Little Rock Christian on Friday keeps the Mustangs at home for a second-round playoff date against either Greenbrier or Little Rock Mills.
Forrest City head coach Rich Trail expects his team to be back at full strength for Friday’s playoff game, after having several players sidelined recently with various bruises and bumps.
Junior tailback Theodis Goodwin, who did not play against Blytheville, will be back in uniform Friday.
Junior running back Devin Green picked up most of the slack Friday, finishing with 109 yards on 20 carries.
Goodwin, through nine games this season, ran for more than 1,200 yards.
Little Rock Christian is led by quarterback Jesse Stone while senior Barrett Astin, who will sign a baseball letter-of-intent with the Arkansas Razorbacks Thursday, has been extremely cool under pressure this season while helping guide the Mustangs to the 8-2 year.
•In Class AA playoff action, the Palestine-Wheatley Patriots will be in postseason play for the first time since 2004.
The fifth-seeded Patriots will travel to second-seeded Mountain Pine for a first-round game on Friday
Following Friday’s round of state playoff games, five of last year’s high school football state champions are still in the hunt to repeat those efforts.
Buzz Bolding, athletic director for Conway Public Schools, is pleased, particularly from a potential revenue standpoint, that a vote by the largest 32 schools in the state placed Bryant, Cabot and North Little Rock back into the 7A/6A Central Conference.
Prior to Friday’s game at Helena-West Helena, Forrest City Coach Rich Trail said one of the keys to a Mustang win would be stopping the big play Cougar offense.
Once Siloam Springs’ quarterback Brian Adair tossed a 39-yard touchdown pass to narrow Greenbrier’s lead to 28-24 late in the third quarter, the Panthers could go only one of two ways.
In the final nonconference game before 5A-West play begins, the Vilonia Eagles put together an evenly balanced attack and a convincing 35-24 win over Beebe on Friday night.
Spencer Harris and Marco Vota batted down Kiehl Frazier's desperation pass to finally end an instant classic as Greenwood outlasted nationally-ranked Shiloh Christian, 54-51.
Northside was able to throw the slant route at will in the second half against Little Rock Catholic but one play kept the Grizzlies from posting a perfect nonconference record.