In fact, Har-Ber lost twice to Southside last season, once during the regular season (27-22) and again in the semifinals of the playoffs (8-7).

Although the Rebels (5-2, 3-1) are coming off a 34-26 home loss against Fayetteville last week, Williams said his team has played very well on the road and that he’s confident about his team’s chances.

“Anytime you play at home, you’re used to the surroundings, but it seems like we’ve been a pretty good road team this year,” Williams said. “We’re playing pretty good football.”

Wood said it’s no secret that both the Wildcats and Rebels will try to establish their running games tonight, the one area that’s been effective for both teams. Both teams have go-to guys in the backfield — Har-Ber has junior Gordon Welch (781 yards, nine touchdowns) while Southside has David Adair (718 yards, four touchdowns) and Lee Hollis (313 yards, nine touchdowns).

Meanwhile, both teams also possess two of the best defenses in the conference, as Har-Ber has given up only 109 rushing yards this season.

“They have so many talented guys on both sides of the ball,” Wood said. “It’s a tough matchup for us. Both teams are going to try and run the ball and both teams are going to rely on their defenses to get the job done. Hopefully we can come away with no turnovers and just rely on what we’ve done well this season.”

TIMES RECORD SPORTS WRITER KEVIN TAYLOR CONTRIBUTED TO THIS REPORT.

When Pearce lines up against other teams on Friday nights, he said he’s already watched so much film that he knows exactly what teams are going to do, whether it’s what quarterbacks do or how blocking schemes are set up.

This season, Pearce has totaled 26 tackles, including nine for losses. He’s also had four sacks, nine quarterback pressures and one blocked kick.

“I really love my position,” Pearce said. “Who wouldn’t like going around and chasing a quarterback? It’s a lot of fun for me to get in there, hit some guys and get our defense going in the right direction. In our 4-3 scheme, we’re big believers that what we do starts up front.”

Travis Moreland, Har-Ber’s defensive coordinator, said because other teams sometimes put so many guys on Pearce, it always opens up other opportunities for Har-Ber’s defense.

This Wildcats have totaled 24 sacks, 23 quarterback pressures and eight interceptions, including two returned for touchdowns.

“Eric uses his hands so well and he has a great first step off the ball,” Moreland said. “Throughout the offseason, he really worked on his side-to-side movement, and he’s really improved.”

Although Pearce has been happy with Har-Ber’s defensive results this season, he said there’s still plenty of room for improvement.

“We’ve got to find ways to keep getting better, that’s the bottom line,” Pearce said. “We’ve worked hard to get to this point, but I feel like we can’t let up. We’re on a mission to get a championship ring and we’re not going to stop until we achieve that.”

Gordon Welch was shoved into action real quick for Springdale Har-Ber this season.

Starting tailback Tre Tyler broke his fibula on the eighth play of the season-opener against Greenwood, forcing Welch into service. Since then, Welch has been the most consistent runner in the conference and now leads the 7A-West Conference in rushing.

“He’s literally taken the ball and ran with it,” Har-Ber coach Chris Wood said. “He’s iron-manned up for us.”

In Friday’s hard-earned 21-14 win against Rogers Heritage in overtime, Welch carried 35 times for 147 yards and all three of the Wildcats’ touchdowns.

“We really pounded him up in there,” Wood said. “It’s nothing fancy. It’s all between the tackles.”

Welch leads the conference in both carries with 167 and in rushing yards with 781. Three times this season, he’s had over 30 carries. Five times, he’s went over 100 yards rushing.

“It starts with the guys around him,” Wood said. “The offensive line has blocked well, and the receivers are blocking downfield.”

Friday night, Heritage just dared Har-Ber to run. Welch did.

“They had eight and nine guys in the box,” Wood said. “They knew what we were going to do, and that’s what we did.”

Welch brings a no-nonsense approach to the position for the Wildcats.

“His parents are hard-working down-to-earth people, and so is he,” Wood said. “He’s a blue-collar worker. He comes to work every day with a lunch pail. He’s very humble.”

Welch had 12 carries for 43 yards and no touchdowns last year as a sophomore in mop-up duty.

Friday night, Welch scored on a 3-yard run and a 14-yard in regulation before scoring on a 10-yard run on Har-Ber’s first play of overtime for the win.

Har-Ber Eyes Gauntlet
Har-Ber is No. 2 the Associated Press poll this week, but the Wildcats will be challenged the final three weeks of the regular season with Fort Smith Southside, Fayetteville and former No. 1 Bentonville waiting to knock them off their perch.

“It’s a gauntlet,” Wood said. “All three are very good. We’re aware of that. Fortunately, two of the three are at home.”

Southside visits Jarrell Williams Stadium this week and will be looking to bounce back from a 34-26 loss to Fayetteville.

“It will be a physical ball game,” Wood said. “Their coaching staff does as good a job as anyone in the conference as far as scheming for their opponents.”

That game will also be a rematch from last year’s semifinals, which Southside won, 8-7, with a late touchdown and two-point conversion.

Bentonville Seniors Make History
The rivalry between Bentonville and Rogers High is as old and storied as any in the state.
Friday, Bentonville’s seniors made history by becoming the first class to go undefeated in all three years against the rival Mountaineers.

“It was in the newspaper earlier in the week, and it was brought up after the game,” Bentonville coach Barry Lunney said. “It’s a long rivalry so it goes without saying when you can do something for the first time, it’s pretty special.”

Friday, Bentonville blanked Rogers, 48-0. Last year, Bentonville won 17-15. In 2007, the Tigers prevailed 28-0.

The win was also Bentonville’s biggest over Rogers since a 58-0 win in 1914.

Perfect Tigers
Bentonville was perfect on Friday against Rogers on possessions.

The Tigers did not punt, committed no turnovers and scored on all six offensive possessions.
“We were real efficient,” Lunney said. “We executed really well. We didn’t have any dropped passes. The passes were on target.”

Bentonville led 41-0 at halftime, applying the mercy rule to begin the second half with the continuously running clock. The Tigers scored on all five offensive possessions in the first half and added a defensive touchdown on Christian Larimer’s 33-yard interception return on the second play of the game.

“We were running the ball, and the clock was running,” Lunney said. “We took a lot of time off the clock in the third quarter and were running the ball with our second group in.”

Bentonville took the second-half kickoff and used up the first seven minutes, 17 seconds of the third quarter before scoring.

Bentonville did have a final possession to end the game running out the clock without scoring, which does not count in scoring efficiency.

End Of The Passing Era?
Passing is still the fancy around the state, but the trend is changing in the 7A-West. In 16 conference games played thus far, the team that rushes for the most yards is 14-2.

“It’s an interesting statistic,” said Lunney, who brought the pass-happy Spread attack to the conference in 1996 while at Southside. “I heard somebody on a college game on Saturday talking about the team with the most rushing yards usually wins. It’s still about the ability to run the football.”

Bentonville and Springdale Har-Ber are the leading rushing teams in the conference. Har-Ber is currently the top-ranked team in the state. Bentonville is the former No. 1 team in the state.

“I think we’re seeing an offensive evolution again,” Wood said. “It’s controlling the clock and controlling the game by running it.”

Har-Ber also has the best defense in the conference, which goes hand-in-hand with the philosophy of controlling the game.

“For us, we have a good defense so why would we throw the ball over and over, stopping the clock and extending the game,” Wood said. “We want to protect the ball and not take any chances with it.”

Many of the teams that are running the ball, however, are still in the one-back shotgun Spread attack but with certain philosophies of the Power-I, Wishbone, the Wing-T and Split-back veer.

“There is a little bit of all of each one of those in the Spread,” Wood said. “There are just variations.”

Teams are relying on defense, field position, ball-control offense like the conference did in the 1980s and 1990s.

“It’s like back in the day of Jarrell Williams and Joe Fred Young,” Wood said. “And those guys sure won their share of games.”

Remember When …
There was actually a 7A-West game that ended regulation in a scoreless tie?

In this modern age of offense, so-called basketball on grass and a barrage of scoring, in 2001 Fayetteville and Springdale actually played a scoreless tie in regulation.

Springdale quarterback Damon Moody broke the tie with a short touchdown run in overtime to lift the Red Bulldogs to 6-0 win over their purple rivals at Harmon Field.

Each team had 14 first downs, Fayetteville had 292 yards of offense while Springdale had 242.

It is the last time two 7A-West teams played to a scoreless tie in regulation and the lowest scoring game in the conference in the past eight years.

By Leland Barclay/Special To The Morning News

THAT FIGURES

0 — Turnovers and punts by Bentonville on Friday night
1 — Win needed by Bentonville’s seniors to tie last year’s senior class as the winningest in school history
3 — Scoreless quarters this season by Bentonville, including two in the fourth quarter of mercy-rule victories, out of 28 quarters played
6 — Straight times in which Springdale has defeated Fort Smith Northside at Jarrell Williams Stadium since Grizzlies won 23-12 in 1997
7 — Straight wins by Fayetteville over Fort Smith Southside, all during Daryl Patton’s tenure

Wood said Welch’s game-winning sweep was a play the Wildcats staff thought would work.

“We saw them (Heritage) crashing the box real hard,” Wood said. “We wanted to get on the edge with a stretch play and he made one guy miss.”

“We did a good job of bringing pressure,” Wood said. “We wanted to get pressure on him (Brown). Glad we have a good defense.”

Har-Ber’s Russ Reynerson stopped a Heritage drive early in the second half with an interception and War Eagles coach Perry Escalante said the two turnovers was too much to overcome. Brown completed 21 of 38 passes for 201 yards.

“Can’t turn the ball over, the picks just killed us,” Escalante said. “(Har-Ber’s) defense had everything to do with that. When you turn the ball over in clutch situations like that, that’s going to get you beat every time. We were right there and we had every opportunity to do that (win).

“We had an opportunity right there late on a little drive to put it away. We just missed that opportunity.”

Heritage forced overtime when Jimmy Britton scored from the 5-yard line on fourth-and-one with 3:47 left in the regulation. Britton’s run capped an 12-play, 79-yard rive that saw Brown hit Driver for 35 yards. Driver finished with seven receptions for 122 yards.

SPRINGDALE HAR-BER 21, ROGERS HERITAGE 14 (OT)

Har-Ber    7    0    0    7    7    —    21
Heritage    0    7    0    7    0    —    14
First Quarter
Har — Welch 3 run (Escobar kick), 6:04
Second Quarter
Her — Entwisle 29 run (Severs kick), 11:47
Fourth Quarter
Har — Welch 14 run (Escobar kick), 7:58
Her — Britton 5 run (Severs kick), 3:47
Overtime
Har — Welch 10 run (Escobar kick)

Har    Her
First Downs    18    11
Rushes-Yards    48-199    21-26
Passing Yards    83    201
Comp-Att-Int    10-22-0    21-36-2
Punts    8-32    7-32
Fumbles-Lost    0-0    1-0
Penalties-Yards    6-40    1-5

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING—Har-Ber, Welch 35-147, Luther 7-37, Pruitt 5-13, Vongvone 1-2. Heritage, Entwisle 6-48, Britton 3-14, Stewart 6-6, Snoderly 1-3, Brown 5-(minus 45).
PASSING—Har-Ber, Luther 10-22-0-83. Heritage, Brown 21-38-2-201, Stewart 0-1-0-0.
RECEIVING—Har-Ber, Vaughn 7-49, Stith 3-34. Heritage, Driver 7-122, Entwisle 5-30, Stewart 5-15, Fruik 3-29, Snoderly 1-5.
MISSED FIELD GOALS—None.

“I’ve been happy with what we’ve been able to do lately, but we’ve still got a long way to go,” Har-Ber coach Chris Wood said. “We just have to make plays and be effective on every down. We can always rely on our defense because that group has been tremendous, but we’ve still got to lean on the offense to put up points.”

Heritage, playing only its second year of varsity football, has relied heavily on junior quarterback Reed Brown, who’s completed 108 passes for 1,524 yards and a league-high 19 touchdowns.

Brown has mostly thrown to receivers Grant Driver and Travis Entwisle, who have combined for 959 receiving yards and 10 touchdowns.

However, Heritage will have to deal with Har-Ber’s stringent defense, which statistically ranks first in the conference. The Wildcats have only given up 153 rushing yards (25.5 average per game) and 708 passing yards (118 per game) this season.

“They’ve got some weapons on offense, there’s no doubt,” Wood said. “It’s going to be a tough game because they’re so versatile.”

SPRINGDALE — One thing is certain about Springdale Har-Ber this season — it’s played plenty of road games.

This week’s game at Rogers Heritage will mark the Wildcats’ (6-0, 3-0) fifth road contest in only seven games this season. In their final three games, Har-Ber has only one road game remaining, at Bentonville on Nov. 6.

The Wildcats haven’t been affected by the road so far this year, as they’re the top team in the 7A-West Conference and ranked No. 2 in the state by the Associated Press.

“Last year, that was an area we weren’t real strong, when we went on the road,” Har-Ber coach Chris Wood said. “This year, our guys have been able to do that, take the routine we have here at home and apply that to the road.”

Wood said playing so many games on the road can really prepare a team for any potential road playoff games after the regular season.

“That’s always in the back of my mind, because you never know how the playoffs will shake out,” Wood said. “But if we’re fortunate enough to make the playoffs, then playing so many road games could really help us there.”

Conference play is just three weeks old, but Bentonville’s Courtney Haskell is the 7A-West Player of the Week for the second time.

Haskell rushed for 225 yards and five touchdowns in Friday’s 56-27 win against Rogers Heritage.

Haskell was the league’s Player of the Week two weeks ago when Bentonville opened conference play with a 45-10 win over Fayetteville.

This past week, Haskell scored on runs of 7, 55, 56, 3 and 11 yards. He had 17 carries. The 55- and 56-yard runs displayed his tremendous abilities.

“They were just our basic zone play,” Bentonville coach Barry Lunney said. “The blocking was good, and he hit the crease. The first one, it was just like it’s drawn up. He used his speed and outran people. The second one, a defender grabbed him with one hand and spun him around. He hit the outside and was gone.”

Haskell wasn’t even 100 percent, physically, for Friday night’s game. He missed practice one day, suffering from a throat and sinus infection. He received a shot Friday morning to help alleviate the symptoms.

BHS Resurgence
After a lackluster performance against Fort Smith Southside, Bentonville’s powerful rushing attack was back on the move against Heritage.

Haskell’s performance, along with running mate Shane Boedeker, who had 27 carries for 157 yards and a 1- and 2-yard touchdown plunge, helped produce 419 yards on the ground on 53 carries and seven rushing touchdowns.

Bentonville suffered no turnovers and punted just once, scoring on eight of nine possessions. The Tigers applied the mercy rule with the continuous running clock.

Bentonville’s offensive line of tackles Chase Peterson and Matt Hoffman, guards Jon-Mark Holden and Marcus Danenhauer, and center Jonathan Mortensen cleared the way on Friday.

“That’s where it all started (against Southside),” Lunney said. “They took it real personal. Southside played real well. They outplayed us. We felt like we were better than what we showed. They went back to work.”

The line is the most experienced unit in Class 7A with 86 career starters led by Holden, who started four games as a sophomore, all 13 last year and all six this year.

Peterson and Danenhauer started all 13 on the way to last year’s state championship as well.

“There’s no doubt about it, we felt like it would be a strong suit going into the season,” Lunney said.

They’ve also had everything thrown at them this year by opposing defenses.

“We’ve seen a lot of different looks,” Lunney said. “Everybody’s trying something different and changing defenses. We have to make adjustments really quick. They’ll be in something we haven’t seen on film or that we haven’t worked on practice.”

The Tigers are sure of one thing when they show up on Friday night.

“Everybody is selling out to stop the run,” Lunney said.

Downright Defensive
Gaudy offensive numbers have certainly been the theme of the decade all around the state, but Springdale Har-Ber has put up some pretty impressive numbers defensively this season.

“We felt like we’d have a solid defense going into the season,” Har-Ber coach Chris Wood said. “They’re an aggressive group of guys. They play hard. They’ve been fun to watch.”

Through six games, Har-Ber has yielded just 153 yards on the ground and 708 passing. That’s just 143.8 yards per game.

“Our goal is the top the run and make (the opposing team) one-dimensional,” Wood said. “We’ve played the run real well.”

Senior noseguard Eric Pearce, who started all 13 games last year, anchors the middle of Har-Ber’s front.

“He doesn’t get enough credit,” Wood said. “He’s the best defensive lineman in this league. He gets double-teamed a lot. He’s the pace-setter of the bunch.”

Linebackers Jacob Bundrick, in the middle, and Preston Cash and Hunter Kissinger provide a solid second-level of defense.

“They’re the three leading tacklers on the team,” Wood said.

Then, of course, there’s Houston Pruitt in the secondary along with Russ Reynerson. Pruitt has started 31 games in his career.

Remember When …
The last time a Bentonville senior class was undefeated against Rogers?

Well, it’s never happened.

The two schools will meet for the 110th time on Friday, and a Bentonville senior class has never swept their rivals from Rogers. The two teams have played consecutively since 1981, and Bentonville has managed a two-year win streak twice during that time.

The two teams also played consecutively from 1938 through 1978 with Bentonville managing a two-year win streak only once. The two were scheduled to meet in 1937 at Rogers, but school officials deemed the field too muddy and canceled the game. Bentonville still wanted to play and claims a forfeit victory although the game was not played.

Prior to that, the two teams played consecutively from 1920 through 1935 because Rogers did not field a team in 1919. Bentonville did not have any two-year win streaks during that time.
Before that, the teams played sporadically.

Also with a win Friday, Lunney can take a 3-2 lead over Rogers as coach of the Tigers. The last Bentonville coach who finished with a winning record against Rogers as the Tigers’ coach was Dean Shackleford in 1947 and 1948. Shackleford’s Tigers beat Rogers, 13-6 and 7-6, in 1947 with Rogers winning 26-0 in 1948.

That Figures

5,191 — Career passing yards for Fayetteville junior quarterback Brandon Allen
4,130 — Career passing yards for Rogers Heritage junior quarterback Reed Brown
45 — Career passing touchdowns for Allen
43 — Career passing touchdowns for Brown
113 — Times in which Washington County rivals Fayetteville and Springdale High have played
110 — Times in which Benton County rivals Bentonville and Rogers High have played before Friday’s game
70 — Rogers wins against Bentonville with six ties

Couture completed 11 of 16 passes for 89 yards and had a 43-yard scoring run before being hurt. Rogers coach Ronnie Peacock was left to only wonder what the final outcome would have been if Couture hadn’t been hurt.

Rogers had minus-18 yards on the ground in the second half and completed just four passes for 38 yards in the final 24 minutes.

“I know what would have happened if we had Andy but we didn’t have Andy,” Peacock said. “When he went down, it was like we couldn’t snap the ball. We just fall apart a little bit.”

Wood agreed that the outcome may have been different if Couture had played the entire game.

“It probably would have been a different story if seven (Couture) doesn’t go down,” Wood said.

Despite the lack of offense in the second half, Rogers had several chances to tie the game, thanks in part to two Har-Ber turnovers.

Rogers was poised to get good field position after stopping the Wildcats at the Har-Ber 16 but the Mounties were called for roughing the punter. Har-Ber used the change of field position to punt the Mounties back into their own territory and Rogers never threatened again.

“We thought we needed a big play, we needed something to change things and we thought we would maybe block a punt,” Peacock said. “Of course, we were close but it was not a good executed play.”

Luther completed 9 of 18 passes for 167 yards and two scores and most of that came in the first half. Luther hooked up with Stith for touchdowns of 45 and 47 yards to give the Wildcats a 21-14 lead at the half.

Rogers led 7-0 early after Har-Ber lost a fumble on its first possession and the Mounties later tied the game at 14-14 on Couture’s long touchdown run.

SPRINGDALE HAR-BER 27, ROGERS HIGH 14

Har-Ber    7    14    0    6    —    27
Rogers    7    7    0    0    —    14
First Quarter
Rog — Parker 7 pass from Couture (Dunlop kick), 9:24
Har — Vaughn 8 run (Escobar kick), 5:51
Second Quarter
Har — Stith 45 pass from Luther (Escobar kick), 7:23
Rog — Couture 43 run (Dunlop kick), 6:40
Har — Stith 47 pass from Luther (Escobar kick), 3:17
Fourth Quarter
Har — Sayarinh 4 run (kick failed), 1:27

Har    Rog
First Downs    17    11
Rushes-Yards    48-229    23-8
Passing Yards    167    127
Comp-Att-Int    9-18-1    15-31-1
Punts    5-36    8-33
Fumbles-Lost    3-2    3-1
Pentalies-Yards    10-97    2-20

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING—Har-Ber, Welch 23-105, Vaughn 11-65, Pruitt 5-30, Sayarinh 4-16, Vongvone 3-9, Vowell 1-7, Luther 2-(minus 3). Rogers, Couture 7-8, Oller 5-13, Austin 1-(minus 1), Melton 1-(minus 1), Conley 9-(minus 11).
PASSING—Har-Ber, Luther 9-18-1-167. Rogers, Couture 11-16-0-89, Conley 4-15-1-38.
RECEIVING—Har-Ber, Stith, 3-97, Pruitt 2-33, Vaughn 2-11, Welch 1-14, Nicholson 1-12. Rogers, Parker 5-61, Melton 3-21, Oller 3-2, Caton 2-8, Carpenter 1-23, Austin 1-12.
MISSED FIELD GOALS—Rogers, Dunlop 34; Har-Ber, Escobar 42.

SPRINGDALE — Springdale Har-Ber coach Chris Wood wasn’t very happy with how the Wildcats played offensively against Fort Smith Northside.

Although Har-Ber (5-0, 2-0) beat the Grizzlies 36-14, two of those touchdowns came from defense and special teams, meaning the offense only scored three touchdowns.

“Our defense gave us 16 points, and we needed every bit of that,” Wood said after last week’s game. “As a night offensively, we weren’t good. We just weren’t physical. Part of that is my fault, it starts with me and the play calling and my organization, and we just didn’t have it going for us (Friday).”

This week, the Wildcats will play a Rogers High team which has averaged 32.2 points per game, but is also at the bottom of the conference standings.

Regardless, Wood said his players will have to be prepared against the Mounties if they want to stay undefeated.

“Rogers is always so well coached,” Wood said. “They may be 0-2 in the conference, but that’s very misleading. They’ve got so much talent and they can score points on you in a hurry. Our defensive guys are going to have to be ready, that’s for sure.”