BENTONVILLE -- There was no reason to settle for a tie Friday night.
Bentonville Coach Barry Lunney elected to go for the victory after Kasey Ford hit Dax Hale with a 7-yard touchdown pass with 39.9 seconds remaining.
Ford rolled to his right on the two-point conversion attempt and threw to Cody Scroggins, but the pass was short and fell incomplete, allowing Kansas City (Mo.) Rockhurst to escape with a 17-16 nonconference victory at Tiger Stadium.
"There's no overtime when you play an out-of-state opponent," Lunney said. "Goodness gracious, I didn't want a tie. We were either going to win it or lose it. If it was a playoff opponent or somebody in state, we could have gone into overtime and would have done it.
"I think the play went the way we planned it. I was watching a little bit on the inside receiver to see if we got a little rub on the guy. When I looked over, I think the ball was down and short of the goal line."
Rockhurst (2-1) took a 17-10 lead when Devin Dunn scooped up Dylan Smith's fumble and raced 46 yards for a touchdown and T.J. Green threw to Luke Ritter for the two-point conversion with 5:53 remaining. Bentonville started its ensuing drive on its 43 after Derek Hembry's kickoff return and a 15-yard face-mask penalty.
The Tigers (0-1) needed 12 plays to cover the distance, which included a 7-yard run by Hekili Keliiliki on a fourth-down play from the Rockhurst 38. Bentonville had first and goal from the Rockhurst 7 with just under a minute to play, but it took a fourth-down pass for the score as Ford rolled to his right and threw across the grain to Hale in the end zone.
Bentonville then tried for two, but the play went for naught. Will Bazzle recovered the onside kick attempt, and the Hawklets took a knee twice to run out the clock.
"That's the way it ought to be. This was a great football team," Rockhurst Coach Tony Severino said. "We had to come back from what we did last week. I just can't say enough about our kids and can't say enough about theirs.
"We finally got one play to go our way after three games. We just kept hanging in there. [Lunney] felt it must have been time to win it, and I might have went for two also. I just told our guys to play the game."
Special teams play haunted Bentonville, even though Bennett Moehring gave the Tigers an early 3-0 lead with a 19-yard field goal in the second quarter. He missed wide left on a 48-yard attempt with 4:34 left in the third quarter, then a bad snap ruined a 38-yard try early in the fourth quarter.
Sports on 09/06/2014