BENTONVILLE -- The thin crowd at Tiger Stadium barely had time to settle into the seats before Kam'Ron Mays-Hunt had stepped into the end zone.
Bentonville's sophomore receiver hauled in a 39-yard touchdown pass from Kasey Ford on the first offensive play, and the Tigers went from there to take a 49-6 victory over winless Rogers Heritage in 7A-West Conference action.
Bentonville 49, Rogers Heritage 6
Heritage^0^3^0^3^—^6
Bentonville^21^14^14^0^—^49
First quarter
Bent — Mays-Hunt 39 pass from Ford (Moehring kick), 11:44.
Bent — Clark 2 run (Moehring kick), 9:26.
Bent — Hunter 3 pass from Ford (Moehring kick), 4:01.
Second quarter
Bent — Ford 12 run (Moehring kick), 9:58.
Bent — Ford 1 run (Moehring kick), 4:32.
Hert — FG Gonzalez 30, 0:20.
Third quarter
Bent — Donson 12 run (Moehring kick), 9:57
Bent — Richey 55 interception return (Moerhing kick), 4:18
Fourth quarter
Hert — FG Gonzalez 41, 5:15.
Mays-Hunt returned the opening kickoff 41 yards, and a facemask penalty put the ball in War Eagles territory. Ford then took his time in the pocket and fired deep to Mays-Hunt, who scored with only 14 seconds gone from the clock.
"We started off pretty sharp," Bentonville coach Jody Grant said. "We opened up with a nice little play to Kam, and it worked out real good for us.
"What I really liked about it was we were able to get a lot of kids into the game, including a lot of seniors that don't always get in. All of our kids played, and we performed well."
Bentonville (8-1, 5-1) had a 21-0 lead after 8 minutes, thanks t0 a 2-yard touchdown run by Jacob Clark and Ford's 3-yard touchdown pass to Chase Hunter. Ford, who was 11 of 15 passing for 182 yards, had touchdown runs of 12 and 1 yards in the second quarter to extend the lead to a 35-0 margin.
One of the few mistakes the Tigers made came on the only time their punting unit took the field late in the first half. A high snap sailed over Hunter's head and went to the Bentonville 24, and Heritage (0-9, 0-6) turned it into a 30-yard field goal by Colton Gonzalez that delayed the sportsmanship rule.
"We're snake-bit," said Heritage coach Perry Escalante, whose team was held to 55 yards total offense in the first half. "We're playing a lot of kids that are hurt, and we just don't have very good team speed right now. We're just struggling.
"The kids are playing hard, but that's about all we can get. We have so many people hurt, and we're facing a really good team. That makes it difficult for us."
Bentonville did force the sportsmanship rule after Avery Donson's 12-yard run with 9 minutes, 57 seconds left in the third quarter. The Tigers then capped their scoring with defense as reserve linebacker Wade Richey returned an interception 55 yards for a score.
Bentonville now heads to Fayetteville next week for an important contest. The winner takes the conference's No. 2 seed and a first-round bye, while the loser drops to a No. 3 seed and plays a first-round playoff game at home.
Sports on 10/31/2015