Hill reaches rarified air with MVP performance in 5A title game

On a cool, Sunday late fall Sunday afternoon at War Memorial Stadium, Justice Hill turned in a performance for the ages and left a lasting mark on Arkansas prep athletics.

Hill led his Little Rock Christian Academy team to the school’s first-ever state championship against arch rival, Pulaski Academy, for the Class 5A crown.

Hill, an Arkansas basketball signee, was electric leading the Warriors to the epic 52-38 upset win. LRCA had to overcome an early 13-0 deficit thanks, in part, to Hill’s costly interception on his first pass of the game that set up a Bruins score.

The Warriors trailed 31-20 at the half, but Hill contributed two second-half touchdowns and set up another and the Warriors held PA to just seven second-half points, which is almost unheard of.

Pulaski Academy is known for explosive offense and is regarded as one of the top programs in the nation with a trademark style of no punting and consistent onside kicks. It’s a philosophy that has served PA coach Kevin Kelley well as the Bruins entered the game looking for their fifth straight title and Kelley’s eighth in 10 tries since 2003.

PA hadn’t lost to an Arkansas team since Morrilton beat them in the 2013 playoffs.

PA has also owned the Warriors including a 56-14 thrashing in the conference opener for both teams on in September on the PA campus. However, that was without Hill, who was nursing a hamstring injury.

The week leading up to the game, pundits speculated how the two-sport star may affect the game. Most agreed he would. Few believed he could help pull off the upset. Late on Saturday night on the way home from the Class 7A State Title game; I called Hill’s dad, Fitz. You remember him as one of former Arkansas coach Houston Nutt’s assistant coaches and the former head coach at San Jose State.

Fitz Hill speculated his son missing that first game may have “worked out for the best.” PA never got to see him in action.

Instead, they faced a fresh-faced sophomore, who while he has a bright future, doesn’t compare to Hill. The Bruins defensive staff had no tape to view with their personnel defending the dual-threat QB, and their defensive unit would probably spend a few series trying to adjust to speed they hadn’t seen before from a quarterback this season.

I agreed, but knew an undersized, quick PA unit, who was giving up just 20 points per contest and only allowing 38 percent of third down conversions, would be prepared.

And they were, but as the game wore on, Hill put on a show that will be remembered along with the likes of Pine Bluff’s Basil Shabazz’s five touchdown-performance against Texarkana in the 1999 Class AAAAA finals.

Hill hit Chris Hightower on a perfect 41-yard TD strike to tie the game at 31 with just over five minutes to play in the third quarter. Then, early in the fourth, Hill hit Hightower on another long pass that the big, junior receiver juggled and hauled in that set up a seven-yard TD run to take the lead that the Warriors never relinquished.

LRCA outscored PA 31-7 in the second half and Hill added a four-yard run, his fourth total TD of the day, to pad the scoring late.

Whether it was the three passes that went for longer than 40 yards (He passed for a 45-yard TD bomb to get LRCA on the scoreboard in the first quarter, or the 7-yard run in which he looked like Allen Iverson changing pace on a befuddled PA defender, the entire MVP performance was one that everyone in attendance will remember.

Make no mistake, this was a team win.

The Warriors defense led by Jack Mabry, who scored on an interception return and who also impacted the game with a 41-yard-per punt average, was aggressive and frustrated PA and its star quarterback Braden Bratcher, who was among top passing yardage leaders in the country.

However, the effort was obviously aided by Hill, and he undoubtedly deserved MVP honors. He proved his presence in the lineup was worth a 32-point difference from the previous meeting. He proved he is the best high school football player in the state. That became clear when he was awarded the Arkansas Gatorade Player of the Year award Thursday.

Hill, who also played defensive back in obvious passing situations in the title game, also made a case to be considered one of the top two-sport athletes in Arkansas prep history. He has a handful of Division I football offers, including Auburn, even though football schools knew he was committed to basketball and Arkansas.

Only a handful of former Arkansas prep players can say that.

The gold standard in my time here was Matt Jones, who played multiple football positions in high school, and was a three-year standout in basketball at Van Buren and later Fort Smith Northside.

Jones was definitely a Division I basketball prospect, even though he was more committed to football and then later played both sports at Arkansas.

There are some that speculate Hill will do the same.

For now, he is committed to basketball and will do the unprecedented and enroll early in the January semester and join the Hogs basketball team as a redshirt. Hill was a very coveted point guard recruit and built a national reputation on the AAU circuit.

This football season, though, maybe pulls his gridiron impact closer to even with his basketball prowess. It could make Hogs fans wonder how his dual-threat talents would do in the new coach Chard Morris’ “hammer down” scheme.

Time will tell what chapter Hill writes on The Hill.

What we know for sure, is he ended his prep sports career with a splash that now puts his name on a short list of sueprastar athletes who turned in memorable performances on a big stage.