BENTONVILLE — There were lessons learned for both Rogers Heritage and Fort Smith Northsidelast year when the two teams opened up 7A-West Conference play at Gates Stadium.
For the Grizzlies it was this: You can never take any team - even a first-year program - for granted during the conference season. Heritage, which was in its first year of playing varsity football and had no seniors, led Northside 25-20 at halftime and was 24 minutes away from delivering a stunning upset of a tradition-rich conference power.
For Heritage, the lesson learned was the conference isunforgiving. Northside roared back with a 39-13 second half and soundly beat the War Eagles 59-38.
Heritage would go on to play two other teams close for a half.
The War Eagles trailed both Bentonville and Fort Smith Southside - the two teams that played for the Class 7A state title - by 10-7 scores at halftime before slipping in the second half of both games.
But what the War Eagles accomplished in those three first halves against Northside, Bentonville and Southside only emphasized even more what 7AWest Conference coaches have been saying for years.
"We say it every year. This conference is so tough," Northside coach Darrell Henry said. "You don't ever have a week where you say we can get healthy or do this or do that. Every opponentthat you play can not only beat you on the scoreboard but they can physically beat you where it hurts you down the road."
The War Eagles (3-0) and Grizzlies (2-1) meet again tonight at Mayo-Thompson Stadium in Fort Smith as 7A-West Conference play begins again.
Three other conference games are scheduled in Fayetteville, Springdale and Rogers.
No. 1-ranked Bentonville (3-0) plays at Harmon Field, while Southside (2-1) visits Rogers (2-1) at Mountie Stadium. The annual battle of Springdale between Springdale High (2-1) and Har-Ber (3-0) is set for Jarrell Williams Bulldog Stadium.
"The biggest thing when you get into conference play is that the bar raises so high," Har-Ber coach Chris Wood said. "You try to use your nonconference games to get you ready but it still doesn't : it's just a different level. Everybody does such a good job. The players play at such a high level. There's a lot of challenges each and every week. That bar is just raised up there so high and you've got to get ready to go."
Bentonville coach Barry Lunney said every other conference and classification in Arkansas is compared to the 7A-West. Lunney's Tigers shared the conference championship with Har-Ber in 2007 and won it outright in 2008.
"It's such a marquee conference," he said.
"It's really the one who everybody's standards are judged by in the state. The 7A-West's got a great football tradition. It's an extremely difficult league to get through and when you do it's a tremendous accomplishment."
Fayetteville coach Daryl Patton can appreciate the difficulty of the league. Patton's Fayetteville Bulldogs won the 2007 Class 7A state championship but their 4-3 conference record that year certainly wasn't a bragging point.
Fayetteville beat Bentonville in the state semifinals and Har-Ber in the state finals in 2007, games that didn't count toward their 7A-West record.
Patton said it's important to keep in perspective that it's a long ride through the conference.
"It's a war each and every Friday night," he said. "Like we told our kids early on, it's not a one-game season. It's a journey. It's seven weeks."
Let the journey begin.
Sports, Pages 7, 8 on 09/25/2009