Bulldogs look to sweep 1A State Championships
Earle boys, girls teams make high school title games
By RALPH HARDIN
ralphhardin@gmail.com
You’ve probably heard the song “Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better)” somewhere or another. It’s a classic show tune composed by Irving Berlin for the 1946 Broadway musical “Annie Get Your Gun.” If you’ve somehow misses it, the song is a duet, with one male singer and one female singer attempting to outdo each other in increasingly complex tasks.
In the musical, the song sets the scene for the climactic sharpshooting contest between Annie Oakley and Frank Butler. Its most memorable lines are, “Anything you can do, I can do better; I can do anything better than you.” During the song, they argue playfully about who can, for example, sing softer, sing higher, sing sweeter, and hold a note for longer, and boast of their abilities and accomplishments, such as opening safes and living on bread and cheese, although Annie almost always seems to counter Frank’s argument. Neither can “bake a pie,” though.
Well, there’s no baking of pies in basketball, but just like Annie and Frank in the song, the Earle Bulldogs and their counterpart Lady Bulldogs have been matching each other win-for-win over the last two weeks of the always- daunting 1A Arkansas State Basketball postseason, collecting “W’s” along the way eliminating their opponents until both teams are now a win away from sweeping the 1A State Championships.
Both the boys and the girls tourneys were held last week in Trumann.
For the Earle boys, their
See BASKETBALL, page A2
The Earle Bulldogs will be playing the Marked Tree Indians in the 2025 Arkansas 1A State Boys Basketball Championship Game this Saturday in Hot Springs.
Photos courtesy of the Earle Bulldogs
The Lady Bulldogs will be playing the West Side Eagles in the 2025 Arkansas 1A State Girls Basketball Championship Game this Saturday in Hot Springs.
From page A1
run to the title game started against Marvell-Elaine, whom they dispatched 7950 in Round 1. Then came a quarter_nal clash with Columbia Christian, which came down to the _nal minute of action and a 67-64 Bulldog win.
The semi_nal showdown with Crowley’s Ridge Academy was ultimately not much of a contest, as Earle dismantled their opponents 62-29 to earn a spot in the 1A Title Game.
In that matchup, the Bulldogs will face a familiar foe in the form of the Marked Tree Indians. The two teams have clashed three times already this season. On Jan. 14, the Bulldogs beat the Indians 47-42. And on Jan. 24, Earle again got the better of Marked Tree, winning 53-39. However, on Feb. 28, in the 1A Region 2 title game, it was the Indians pulling off the win, 48-42, which actually made Marked Tree the top seed from the Region. Earle will be looking for a little revenge when they face their rivals this Saturday, March 15, at 7:45 p.m., at OZK Bank Arena in Hot Springs.
As for the Lady Bulldogs, they tipped off their state tournament run with a convincing 77-38 win over Augusta. Then came the quarter _nals, where Earle turned back the challenge of a tough Lafayette County squad, ultimately holding on for a 61-56 victory, setting up a semi_nal clash with No. 1 seed Jasper.
In that contest, the Lady Bulldogs took the lead and never looked back, winning convincingly, 67-47 and earning a berth in the 1A Title Game. In the championship, the Earle girls will also be facing an opponent they know well.
On March 1, the West Side Eagles handed Earle one of only two losses the Bulldogs suffered in all of the 2025 portion of the schedule, beating them 53-46. It will now be the Earle girls looking for payback and a championship title when the two schools face off on Saturday, March 15, at 6 p.m., at OZK Bank Arena in Hot Springs.
In partnership with the Arkansas Activities Association, both games will be broadcast statewide over the air, on cable and on satellite on Arkansas PBS’s primary channel and will also be available to watch at myarpbs.org/ watchsports.
