FORT SMITH — After watching film on Fort Smith Northside this past week, the Rogers Heritage coaches felt the had a more than reasonable chance to knock off the Grizzlies.
The Heritage staff then spent the whole week trying to convince the War Eagles of that.
Heritage bought in to what its coaches told them and walked out of Mayo-Thompson Stadiumon Friday with a 24-21 victory for the second-year program's firstever conference win.
The War Eagles went 3-7 last season and 0-7 in the 7A-West but now stand 4-0 this year, including 1-0 in conference play.
"Nobody really gave us a shot and I knew coming in we had a chance," said head coach Perry Escalante, who is now 7-7 as head coach of the War Eagles. "We watched (Northside) on film quite a bit. We watched what (Little Rock) Catholic didto them, what Pine Bluff did to them. We said, 'We can beat theseguys.' We just had to get our kids where they believed that. They bought into it. They're a good football team. They performed tonight. They showed they can play."
Probably very few times in the history of football has a defense ever given up 538 yards and beenlabeled the heroes of the game afterward. But that's just the case for the War Eagles.
Heritage forced five turnovers - including four in the second half - and shut Northside out of the end zone in the second half.
Sam Mayhall intercepted two passes in the fourth quarter and Jimmy Britton picked off another in the end zone with no time remaining to squash Northside's finally rally attempt.
Stefan Reed and Reid Schatzman recovered fumbles. On the flip side, Heritage did notturn the ball over for the fourth consecutive game.
"We made some mistakes," Northside coach Darrell Henry said. "We fumbled the football and had some turnovers. You just can't do that in this conference and be successful."
The War Eagles gave up 317 yards of offense the Grizzlies in the first half but only 221 in the second half. Heritage switched to a four-man defensive front which helped stuff the Grizzlies' runninggame for only 6 rushing yards in the second half.
"It was just the adjustments at halftime," said defensive coordinator Jerrod Blockburger. "They were hurting us up the middle.We adjusted up the middle and it made all the difference. The kids played their heart out. They did what we expected and they came out with abig 'W.'"
Northside took its final timeout of the ball game with 2:25 left in the fourth quarter and Heritage driving in the Grizzlies' red zone. The War Eagles were able to run the clock down to 1:03 before turning the ball over on downs back to Northside on the 25-yard line.
"On the sidelines we're all sitting there chanting, hooping and hollering," said Heritage quarterback Reed Brown of the final minutes. "Some of us were sitting over there praying. Our defense pulled it through. It's a good 'David versus Goliath' story.It was so great for us."
Grizzlies quarterback Tanner Knight hit 4 of 5 passes for 54 yards down to the Heritage 21 in Northside's hurry-up offense before Britton's interception ended the game.
"That's what we do, the two-minute thing," Henry said. "They were obviously backing off a bit. We threw the ball well and caught it. We were just out of timeouts and out of time.We had to go for the end zone there."◊◊ ◊
The Grizzlies put the clamps on wide receiver Jordan Snoderly, who didnot catch a pass. However Snoderly's impact on the game was felt on special teams. Snoderly launched six punts for an average of 41.6 yards.
Snoderly punted out of the Heritage end zone twice in the fourth quarter and rocketed kicks of 41 and 51 yards on those kicks.
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Escalante said excitement in the community and school about this week's Rogers-Heritage game at Gates Stadium started even before the War Eagles played Northside.
But not in War Eagle football camp.
"I know our school and community's been looking forward to the game against Rogers," Escalante said. "We wanted to keep our kids grounded and focused on this (Northside) game because (a win) would be huge for the program."
With Northside out of the way, the War Eagles can now turn their full attention to the Mounties (2-2, 0-1), who lost to Fort Smith Southside 38-21 Friday night.
"We're looking forward to them," Brown said. "We have them at home. It's going to be a real fun game."
Sports, Pages 7, 8 on 09/27/2009