BENTONVILLE — Tearris Wallace knew his time on the field was going to be limited Friday night, but he made his last carry become a noteworthy one.
Gamebreaker
Bentonville 48 Rogers Heritage 7
Why the Tigers won
Bentonville scored on its first six possessions and had the ball at the Heritage 1 when time expired in the first half. Tearris Wallace ran for three touchdowns, and Reese Dollins threw for two more.
Why the War Eagles lost
Heritage was held to 65 yards total offense in the first half, and its first four offensive possessions ended with punts. Its most serious scoring drive ended at the Bentonville 24, where Josh Qualls was tackled on a fourth-down play.w
Bentonville already sported a 28-0 lead early in the second quarter when the senior tailback took the ball and went to his right, then switched directions. He raced for 20 yards and a touchdown, and the Tigers went on to post a 48-7 victory over Rogers Heritage in 7A/6A-West Conference action at Tiger Stadium.
It was Wallace’s first and only carry of the second quarter. He finished the game with 111 yards on only nine rushing attempts. The last carry, however, gave him three touchdowns and put him over the 1,000-yard mark this season, giving him 1,010 through seven games.”
“It feels amazing,” Wallace said. “I had no idea how close I was until I read it in the paper just the other day. It’s a privilege and an honor.
“We called it up, and the offensive line had it blocked well. The receivers downfield — I could see them all the way, and they had a massive hole for me. I don’t remember who it was, but somebody had a great block for me. I have to give credit to those guys.”
Wallace had scoring runs of 10 and 49 yards in the opening three minutes, and Reese Dollins added a pair of touchdown passes as Bentonville (7-0, 4-0) quickly led 28-0 after one quarter. Dollins discovered a wide-open Trey Perkins in the end zone for an 8-yard touchdown pass, then hit Nate Gneiting in stride for a 46-yard touchdown pass.
Dollins finished the game with 168 yards on 10-of-12 passing and hit six different receivers to go with Wallace’s early performance. The Tigers had a pair of one-play possessions for scores and scored two more times on five-play possessions.
“It was a no-huddle (offense), but not a fast-paced no-huddle,” Bentonville coach Barry Lunney said. “We were doing a little checking. By what they were giving us, in the sense they were playing a lot of man coverage and getting a lot of guys in the box, they wanted to make it tough to run.
“To be a complete football team offensively, we can’t just run the ball because we want to run the ball. When you have opportunities to throw it and have the man coverage, you have to take advantage of it. I thought we had some good matchups.”
Heritage, on the other hand, didn’t get untracked until the second half as the clock ran constantly, even when Brandon Gates scored on a 3-yard run in the third quarter. The War Eagles (4-3, 1-3), who dropped their third consecutive game, was held to 65 yards total offense in the first half by the Tigers’ defense.
“They’re just a pretty good football team,” Heritage coach Perry Escalante said. “They’re sound all the way around — offense, defense, kicking game.
“Their defense is just so fast and run to the football so well. We could never get anything going and never got established.”
Bentonville returns to conference action next week at Van Buren, while Heritage host Springdale High.