PRAIRIE GROVE -- Huntsville received a rude welcome Friday in its return to the 4A-1 Conference.
Prairie Grove scored on four of its final five possessions in the first half and held the Eagles to 157 yards of offense in a 35-7 victory over Huntsville at Tiger Stadium.
HOW THEY SCORED
Prairie Grove 35, Huntsville 7
Huntsville^0^0^0^7^—^7
Prairie Grove^7^22^6^0^—^35
First quarter
PGHS — Eli Lopez 78 run (Blake Faulk kick), 3:09
Second quarter
PGHS — Orrin Hacker 11 pass from Ryan Marrell (kick failed), 11:57
PGHS — Blake Faulk 6 run (Sam Dodd pass from Ryan Marrell), 8:07
PGHS — Dylan Soehner 10 pass from Ryan Marrell (Zach Downey pass from Zeke Laird), 0:12
Third quarter
PGHS — Reed Orr 9 run (kick failed), 4:32
Fourth quarter
HHS — Levi Elsey 71 run (Juan Hernandez kick), 8:17.
Huntsville (2-2, 0-1) spent the previous four seasons in Class 5A.
The Tigers (2-1, 1-0) played without top running back Bobby Catt, who suffered an ankle sprain last week. But Eli Lopez ran 12 times for 142 yards and a touchdown and Blake Faulk added 138 yards and a touchdown on 13 carries.
"(Catt) is a great player, but they showed off the kind of team they have to lose a player like that and still play as well as they did," Huntsville Coach Tom Tice said.
But it took the Tigers time to get untracked.
It was their third possession before the offense got in gear, but the Tigers scored on four of their final five possessions of the first half to take a 29-0 halftime lead.
Prairie Grove then scored with 4:32 left in the third quarter to take a 35-0 lead and start the continuously running clock under the Arkansas Activities Association sportsmanship rule.
"We have the availability to do (spread the offensive load)," Prairie Grove Coach Danny Abshier said. "We have some other people who can do some things and we'd like to be as multiple (as possible) and test them out and spread them out."
The Tigers spread the scoring wealth with four players scoring first-half touchdowns, including two on passes from quarterback Ryan Marrell.
Prairie Grove took a 7-0 lead with three minutes left in the first quarter when Lopez took a handoff on a trap play, broke down the left sideline then cut back to the middle near the 10 to complete a 72-yard run.
Marrell had scoring passes of 11 yards to Orrin Hatcher on the first play of the second quarter and 10 yards to Dylan Soehner with 12 seconds remaining in the half. Sandwhiched in between was a six-yard touchdown run by Faulk with eight minutes left in the period.
Faulk is normally the starting wingback but stepped in for Catt at halfback.
"Blake really wants to be that halfback," Abshier said. "We'd love to have Bobby back but Faulk stepped in and filled his shoes very well.
"You can't replace Bobby Catt but we did well tonight."
Levi Elsey accounted for nearly half of Huntsville's offense with a 71-yard touchdown run with 8:17 remaining in the game.
EXTRA POINTS
• Prairie Grove piled up 480 yards offense, including 410 on the ground.
• Huntsville last defeated Prairie Grove in 2000, winning 18-14. The Tigers have won six straight in the series since. The teams didn't play from 2002-05 and 2010-13 when Huntsville was a member of Class 5A.
• The Tiger Stadium turf had pink ribbons painted at the 25-yard lines and the spirit squads and student section were dressed in pink T-shirts to highlight breast cancer awareness.
Up next: Huntsville returns home to face Shiloh Christian while Prairie Grove visits Gravette.
Sports on 09/27/2014