BENTONVILLE -- Chase Hunter made the most of his first pass attempt this season, even if it took a little trickery to accomplish the feat.
Bentonville's backup quarterback caught Tallahassee (Fla.) Rickards out of position when he launched a 61-yard touchdown pass to Clay Barganier on the Tigers' first play, and that set the stage for Bentonville's 37-8 victory in nonconference action at Tiger Stadium.
Bentonville 37, Tallahassee (Fla.) Rickards 8
Rickards^0^0^8^0^—^8
Bentonville^14^6^0^17^—^37
First quarter
Bent — Barganier 61 pass from Hunter (Moehring kick), 10:08
Bent — Mays-Hunt 17 pass from Ford (Moehring kick), 5:43
Second quarter
Bent — FG Moerhing 22, 4:42
Bent — FG Moerhing 24, :20.7
Third quarter
Rick — Williams 6 run (Phillips pass to Hunter)
Fourth quarter
Bent — FG Moehring 31, 10:35
Bent — Ford 1 run (Moehring kick), 5:52
Bent — Bowman 5 run (Moehring kick), 1:42
Rick — Williams 6 run (Phillips pass to Hunter), 8:18
Fourth quarter
Bent — FG Moehring 31, 10:35
Bent — Ford 1 run (Moehring kick), 5:52
Bent — Bowman 5 run (Moehring kick), 1:42
Hunter, who was lined up as a receiver, took a lateral from Kam'ron Mays-Hunt behind the line of scrimmage and launched his pass to a wide-open Barganier, who raced behind the Rickards secondary for his first touchdown catch with less than 2 minutes off the clock.
"Right now, it just feels like an experiment -- doing whatever I'm told," Hunter said. "Kam'ron pitched the ball to me out of a jet sweep, and the line blocked incredible. I had plenty of time to launch it downfield to Clay. Maybe it was a little bit underthrown, but if it works, it works."
Kasey Ford accounted for two touchdowns and Hayden Moehring kicked three field goals as Bentonville (3-0) extended its win streak to 12 games heading into 7A-West Conference play. Ford hit Kam'ron Mays-Hunt with a 17-yard touchdown pass midway through the first quarter, then Moehring added field goals of 22 and 24 yards to give the Tigers a 20-0 halftime cushion.
"I thought we operated pretty well," Bentonville coach Jody Grant said. "We had a plan to start off the game with that trick play. It's always fun when it works and makes you feel good about it, then we operated again on our second series. Coming out, I felt pretty good about what we were doing."
Rickards (3-1), ranked fifth among Class 5A teams in Florida's Associated Press poll this week, made things interesting in the third quarter. Delvon Williams' 5-yard touchdown run and DJ Phillips' two-point conversion pass to Chad Hunter made it a 20-8 game with 8 minutes, 18 seconds left in the third quarter, then the Raiders drove to the Bentonville 18 before a fourth-down pass fell incomplete.
Bentonville then put the game away with 17 unanswered points in the fourth quarter.
Ford finished with 284 yards on 16 of 27 passing and surpassed the 4,000-yard career passing mark as Bentonville compiled 531 yards total offense. He now has 4,148 passing yards since taking over as the Tigers' quarterback during the second game of the 2013 season.
Sports on 09/19/2015