BENTONVILLE — Nick Stone has never lost a game to crosstown-rival Bentonville West, and he wasn’t about to let that streak end Thursday night.
Stone and the Bentonville defense made sure of that, limiting West to just 11 net yards rushing in the second half as the Tigers locked down the 7A-West Conference title and the No. 1 seed from the conference in a dominating 24-10 win at Tiger Stadium.
The game was moved up a day to avoid potential severe weather in Northwest Arkansas today.
“That’s a trend around here,” said Stone, who recorded two sacks and two more tackles for loss in the win. “You can’t lose to West. You’ve got to keep it going.” Bentonville (9-1 , 7-0 7A-West) leaned heavily on its defense and the unit responded, shutting out West (7-3, 5-2) in the second half.
The Wolverines also played exceptional defense in the second half and did not allow a point, which kept West in the game. And the Wolverines had numerous chances to make it a closer game, but self-inflicted mistakes were too much to overcome, said Coach Bryan Pratt.
“We were stabbing ourselves in the foot in the second half,” said Pratt. “We were moving the football. Coaches told me we were inside the 20-yard-line four times, but we don’t score. So I don’t know if it was so much what they were doing or what we were doing. Just too many stupid mistakes that you can’t make. You can’t throw picks, you can’t do things like that if you want to be successful and win conference championships.” West led the game 3-0 in the first quarter, driving from its own 20 to the Bentonville 24 before getting a booming 37-yard field goal from Josh Bruxton with 6 minutes, 17 seconds left in the opening quarter.
After the Bruxton field goal, Bentonville reeled off three straight rushing touchdowns by senior Josh Ficklin, who rushed for 205 yards on 34 carries. None of Ficklin’s attempts resulted in a negative play. In fact, Bentonville as a team rushed 43 times in the game without a negative play, a tribute to its big offensive line, led by University of Arkansas verbal commit Joey Su’a.
Ficklin scored on runs of 5, 28 and 3 yards to give the Tigers a 21-3 lead and it looked like Bentonville would cruise. But West shook off the early deficit and pulled within 21-10, driving 80 yards in 11 plays, with the aid of a pass interference penalty against the Tigers. Quarterback Jake Casey hit Carson Morgan out of the backfield for 28 yards, then Morgan capped the drive with a 1-yard touchdown run with 5:23 left in the half.
Bentonville answered back as Carter Nye hit CJ Brown for 43 yards to the West 24, then the Tigers got a 41-yard field goal from Logan Tymeson.
West had a golden scoring chance right before the half as Casey hit Ty Durham for 51 yards that put the Wolverines inside the Bentonville 20. But West was unable to capitalize on a fourth-down play as Durham came up a yard short to stop the drive.
“If you had said we would hold Bentonville without a point in the second half, we’d win the game,” said Pratt. “Just really disappointed in us offensively. We had some situations where we could have made it a whole lot different game.” Bentonville Coach Jody Grant said his team will take advantage of getting a bye week next week for the first round of the playoffs.
“We won’t play again for 15 days,” said Grant. “So we have to be smart. We have experience with the bye, but I don’t know if we have the formula for the bye. I think it’s important you get your guys some rest, but you also don’t want to rest too much and have your guys lose their sharpness. The bye is what it is. It’s a nice thing to have. We’ll figure this out and hopefully, put together a nice plan.” The loss dropped West to the No. 3 seed in the conference standings and the Wolverines will host Jonesboro next week in the first round of the 7A playoffs, said Pratt.