ROGERS — Heritage's run of scoring on 13 straight possessions by its No. 1 offense came to an early end in their 35-7 nonconference victory at Republic, Mo., on Friday night.
The reason wasn't so much the defense put up by the Republic Tigers as it was junior quarterback Reed Brown had too much time to think in the pocket.
"They did us a little different," Heritage head coach Perry Escalante said. "Instead of putting any pressure on us, they rushed four and our offensive line blocked great."
He said the Tigers dropped a lot of people into coverage.
"We had people open all over and I guess Brown had too much time, got too much thinking going on," Escalante said. "We came away with no points that first drive. That's something we corrected. That's some-over thinking on Reed's part."
The War Eagles scored their next three possessions of the first half to go up 21-0 and added two more scores in the second half, starting a new scoring string of five.
Brown completed 69 percent of his 26 attempts, his most in one game by nine. His 18 completions went for 293 yards and four touchdowns: one each to Jeff Fruik, Jordan Snoderly, Travis Entwisle and Grant Driver.
"He settled down and started making quicker decisions," Escalante said. "He had just way too much time to think back there. Sometimes that's not good."
The War Eagles piled up 26 first downs, 13 each rushing and passing. They amassed 495 yards in total offense on 63 plays. Of the yardage, 293 came through the air and 202 on the ground.
"We ran up some first downs," Escalante said. "It got so bad one time, we were moving the ball so well, that the white hats started slowing every thing down, making everybody stop until the chains were set.
"They got a little gassed. We told them, 'We're going fast,' and we did a good job of that snapping the ball at the whistle. They'd blow it ready and we'd snap the ball. It worked out real well for us. We piled up some yardage, first downs and then we settled in and went to work. We didn't mean to gas the officials."
The War Eagles were able to play their offensive starters a little over three quarters, the first time they were able to do that all season. They were pulled before halftime last week and after one series of the third quarter in their opener.
"We could have pulled them the middle of the third quarter, but we let them continue to play," Escalante said. "We needed more time out there."
Heritage mixed its starters and reserves from the middle of the third quarter on, he said.
"The twos took over the mid- dle of the fourth quarter," he said.
The 202 yards rushing on 37 attempts were the most yards ever accumulated in one game by Heritage, which has 13 games under its belt.
"To this point, you betcha," Escalante said. "Absolutely."
That was done by design.
"We were looking to run more this week," he said. "Our plan was to establish a run game early and keep chipping away at it. It worked out pretty good for us."
He said his coaches thought Republic would line up in a three-man front, dropping more defenders into pass coverage.
"There were running a 4-2 and we were still able to run the ball on them," Escalante said. "What we saw on film was anytime they faced the Spread they were going to run the three-front. They didn't, but we still blocked pretty good and felt like we could run the football on them."
Heritage's offense needed just 15 minutes to score its 35 points. Republic possessed the ball the other 33 minutes of the game.
Sports, Pages 7, 8 on 09/20/2009