PREP FOOTBALL Bentonville rolls over Rogers Heritage, 56-7

ROGERS -- Rogers Heritage had no answer for Bentonville High on Friday night.

The Tigers scored on their first six possessions and held the War Eagles without a first down until the final three minutes of the first half en route to the 56-7 7A-West Conference win at Gates Stadium.

Bentonville High 56, Rogers Heritage 7

Bentonville 14 28 7 7 — 56

Rogers Heritage 0 7 0 0 — 7

First Quarter

Bent-Crawford 4 run (Younger kick), 8:33.

Bent-Hughes 1 run (Younger kick), 4:40.

Second Quarter

Bent-Smith 5 pass from Hughes (Younger kick), 11:55.

Bent-Golden 8 pass from Hughes (Younger kick), 7:45.

Bent-Crawford 1 run (Younger kick), 3:35.

Hert-Brown 1 run (Christian kick), 0:32.

Bent-Hearn 11 pass from Hughes (Younger kick), :05.

Third Quarter

Bent-Miller 37 pass from Pankau (Younger kick), 3:31.

Fourth Quarter

Bent-Hannon 2 run (Nimrod kick), 4:31.

Quarterback Easton Hughes was a perfect 11 of 11 passing for 141 yards and three touchdowns in just a half of action. He threw touchdown passes of 5, 8 and 11 yards -- all in the second quarter.

The senior, who sat out the second half, connected with Dylan Smith for a 5-yard scoring strike on the first play of the second quarter for a 21-0 Bentonville advantage. He added the 8-yard touchdown pass to Sam Golden and finished with an 11-yard pass to Devin Hearn late in the first half to push the lead to 42-7.

Bentonville coach Jody Grant couldn't have been more pleased with the way his team played, but specifically Hughes.

"Our goal is to get better each week and we felt good about our play in all phases of the game," Grant said. "It's a good win for us tonight. I thought we operated well in phases. We came out and ran the ball.

I think our quarterback's playing really good right now and the offensive line is improving each week. We're pleased with the way he's playing right now and we just hope he keeps it up. I just think he's more comfortable and he's going through his progressions well. He's a strong-armed quarterback and he's a headsy guy. He's doing what we though he was capable of."

The Tigers (3-3, 3-0 7A-West) scored on all six possessions of the first half and didn't punt until their first drive of the second half. Preston Crawford rushed for a pair of touchdowns, while Noah Fetherolf had a team-high 69 rushing yards.

Junior Ben Pankau intercepted a Zach Brown pass on a fake punt in the first half, which set the Tigers up at the Heritage 21 and led to a Bentonville touchdown. He also threw a 37-yard touchdown pass to Luke Miller, which gave the Tigers a 49-7 lead with 3:32 left in the quarter.

Bentonville has now won three consecutive games, after beginning the season 0-3. The Tigers have now outscored their last three opponents by a combined score of 144-15. Grant said his team is improving each week since the slow start.

"Experience is one of the things," Grant said. "We're tackling better and minimizing some of the penalties. Our kids just had to learn from those losses. You know, it was a tough lesson, but it's important to learn and possibly paying off for us now."

The War Eagles (0-6, 0-3) put together their lone scoring drive keyed by Brown running and throwing the ball. The senior accounted for 40 yards rushing and 11 passing and scored on a 1-yard keeper to make it 35-7 with 32 seconds left in the first half.

However, Bentonville roared back to score in less than 30 seconds. Colby Reid set up the score with a long kickoff return. Hughes then completed back-to-back passes to Hearn of 46 and 11 yards The second one was for the touchdown with 5 seconds left in the first half.

Sports on 10/06/2018

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