Smith Helps Tigers Take Strange Victory

— A 30-point performance by Nick Smith is rather commonplace when it comes to Bentonville’s boys basketball team.

BENTONVILLE 55, ROGERS HERITAGE 48

Heritage 8 12 12 16 — 48

Bentonville 14 16 10 15 — 55

Heritage (9-13, 0-10): Hirsh 11, Olsen 8, Robbins 7, Fryauf 6, Kinnamon 6, Greenway 5, Thomas 3, Jones 2.

Bentonville (17-6, 7-3): Smith 30, Heard 6, Ward 6, Haggard 4, Drechny 4, Head 3, Dixon 2.

That turned out to be one of the few normalities Friday night as the Tigers posted a 55-48 victory over Rogers Heritage during a 7A/6A-West Conference filled with oddities in Tiger Arena.

Bentonville (17-6, 7-3) sported a 30-20 halftime cushion but never could put Heritage (9-13, 0-10) completely out of reach. That 10-point cushion turned out to be the Tigers’ biggest lead, but the War Eagles never could put together an offensive run and get within serious striking distance.

“I agree with that; it did seem strange,” Bentonville coach Jason McMahan said. “I think, from the basketball side of it, Heritage did a good job of breaking the rhythm of the game.

“It was hard for us to get a flow. In those spells when we did to pull away, their kids made some big shots — some 3-pointers that were deep. (Heritage coach) Tom (Olsen) was also doing a good job of mixing up defense, going man some then going zone.”

Burned-out lightbulbs on the scoreboard attributed to the strangest part of the game, an occurrence that McMahan said he had never seen in his life.

Heritage had pulled within 52-47 on Hayden Greenway’s 3-pointer with 1 minute, 2 seconds and had a chance to get closer when Luke Fryauf was fouled. The scoreboard appeared to show six fouls, so the War Eagles threw an inbounds pass and failed to score.

It wasn’t until a Heritage foul with 17.8 seconds remaining when the scorekeeper noticed Bentonville had eight team fouls instead of six — which meant Fryauf should have shot a one-and-one. She told a referee about it and, after a long discussion, Fryauf went to the line at that point before Smith took his free throws.

Fryauf hit one of two to make it a four-point game. Smith did the same, then Tyrik Dixon hit two more seconds later to close out the scoring.

“It was kind of weird,” Olsen said. “We had some shots there at the end that we had to make in order to make it a game, and we didn’t.

“I thought our kids battled. Nick Smith hit 30, and that was the difference.”

Smith was the only Bentonville player in double figures, while Connor Hirsh led Heritage with 11 points.

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