BENTONVILLE — Bentonville wasn't overly successful in getting Fayetteville's Brandon Allenon the ground Friday night, but the Tigers were effective in other ways defensively against the junior quarterback.
The top-ranked Tigers forced Allen to simply throw the ball away five or six times and he only completed 18 of 37 passes for 176 yards in the Tigers' 45-10 win at Harmon Field.
The Tigers (4-0, 1-0 7A-West) won their seventh straight game dating back to last season while Fayetteville dropped to 1-2-1 and 0-1.
"The coverage was good enough down field and our front three put pressure
on him to where he had to get rid of it," Bentonville coach Barry Lunney said. "He did as a good quarterback does and threw it away."
Lunney said the combination of the pass rush by the Tigers' front three - namely Chris Smith, Chase Gogel and Emerson DePeel - wouldn't let Allen get comfortable in the pocket. When he did throw, the Tigers' secondary didn't get him many opportunities to find open receivers.
"As many receivers as Fayetteville plays, you think somebodydogs' defense was clearly trying take away Bentonville's inside running game and force the Tigers to edges and to the air.
"They really didn't stay much in their 4-3 (defense) and got in bear front and junk defenses," Lunney said. "They made it difficult to run in there and that's what they wanted."
The Tigers responded in the passing game which in turn opened up the runwould get open," Lunney said. "We had him running and moving. I think the coverage was certainly good."◊◊ ◊
Lunney said the Bullning game later.
Bentonville quarterback Pearson Gean completed 9 of 12 passes for 260 yards. He threw two touchdown passes - a 27-yard pass to Austin Griffith and a 95-yard pass to Courtney Haskell - in the first quarter.
Gean also hit Sheldon Vanderpool for a 61-yard pass later in the game.
The Tigers rushed for 293 yards led by Haskell's150 yards on 13 carries and 95 yards from Shane Boedeker on eight carries. Haskell and Boedeker each had two rushing touchdowns. Gean rushed for a season-high 51 yards on eight carries.
The Tigers had a season-high 553 yards of total offense.
"We're capable of doing that (on offense)," Lunney said. "We feel very confident in Pearson, ourreceivers are much improved. (Fayetteville is) so explosive offensively we really needed to run the ball. It was a good balance." NOTES: Bentonville junior kicker Chad Levin, who transferred in from Fayetteville before school started, kicked the Tigers' first field goal of the year from 36 yards out. He also was successful on six extra point tries.
Sports, Pages 7, 8 on 09/27/2009