By: RHETT MANUEL
Sports Editor
MONROE – Pick a sport, any sport, that Sacred Heart plays as a school and there’s a pretty good shot of the program’s recent playoff history in it involves the Ouachita Christian Eagles.
It’s become somewhat of a running joke in the Halls of Troy that the Trojans always run into OCS at some point in the postseason.
It happened most recently in the 2022 baseball postseason, when the Trojans won the first game of a three-game series in the Division IV quarterfinal and ultimately lost in the rubber match.
Seemingly every year for the Trojans, it’s a matchup with OCS that decides its postseason fate. It won’t change this week, as the No. 14-seeded Trojans make the three-hour trip to Monroe to play the No. 3-seeded Eagles in the regional round of the Division IV select playoff bracket.
“This is something we have to do,” Harper said. “In order for your program to take that next step or be that next team, you want to play the best. We could have a better or easier matchup. But, eventually, you have to play these sorts of teams of that caliber to get where you want to get. You have to run into these teams anyway, we just always do so during this round.”
Sacred Heart is going into battle with a program that has become one of Class 1A’s model programs over the past decade.
OCS is currently on quite the run in football, having made the state championship game each of the past three seasons with one state championship and two runner-up finishes to show as their accomplishments.
It’s a monumental task. But, it’s not one the Trojans are backing down from.
“We know the task at hand,” Sacred Heart head coach Josh Harper said. “We’re playing one of those programs that traditionally is a power in Class 1A football. It’s a similar situation to going up last year to Calvary Baptist. Of course, we’re hoping for a different outcome. But, it’s going to take a complete game.
“This is one of the perennial powers. We’re going to go up there and give them our best shot.”
Firing your best shot at this level takes complete and total preparation. In eight years, Harper has prided himself on building a program that is fearless and prepares at a high level.
It’s with that mindset that Sacred Heart has approached this week of practice with an eye towards potentially giving OCS something unexpected.
“It’s been a good week so far,” Harper said. “We’re going to give our best punch. We won’t back down. Whatever the score is, our kids are prepared to play a hard-fought game.
“We’ve seen them on film and know what they do. They’re big and physical, but we’ve seen that this year. Our kids will be up to the task with the physicality. But, in a game like this, we can’t afford to have those bad moments. We’ve put in some new wrinkles, some things we think will work. We’re trying to get a grasp on what we’re doing. We feel good about our game plan, and we feel that’s what we need to do to be successful.”
With a fearless approach comes a fearless mindset, and the thought that it just took one stone for David to down Goliath.
While the entire state, Sacred Heart included, would consider it an upset it has to be considered what a program-defining win like this one would do for the long-term prospects of Trojan athletics.
“I can’t explain it in words,” Harper said. “It would be such a great feeling for the team, the coaches, the community and the school. It would be huge for us if we were to get this upset. You could put that feather in your cap, and maybe you could get kids that want to be part of what you’re doing and building.”
June 20, 2026
