Bentonville outlasts Fayetteville
BENTONVILLE — There’s something about the regular season where Bentonville High School’s football team has the upper hand on Fayetteville.
The Tigers, however, couldn’t breathe easy about their 12th consecutive regular-season victory over their 7A-West Conference rival until Ryley Martin recovered a Darius Bowers fumble with 12 seconds to play and preserved Bentonville’s 32-27 victory at Tiger Stadium on Friday.
“Normally I would follow the tackle out, but I saw the fumbled snap — I couldn’t really see what was going on,” Martin said. “All I saw was the ball on the ground.
“I was like ‘Should I be humble and just fall on it or should I take it up and score?’ I just ended up falling on it. Man, the feeling — I can’t explain it. It was crazy.”
Bentonville (2-2, 1-0) had a quick response and regained momentum each time Fayetteville (1-3, 0-1) scored in the second half.
After Bowers tied the score at 17-17 on a 1-yard run with 8 minutes, 27 seconds left in the third quarter, the Tigers responded 88 seconds later with Nathan Lyons’ 38-yard touchdown pass to Tyler Johnson and Lyons’ two-point conversion for a 25-17 lead.
Fayetteville settled for Huxley Richardson’s 22-yard field goal to make it 25-20 with 2:31 left in the third quarter. Bentonville, however, needed 21 seconds to counter, and used a trick play to do it.
Ben Pankau — a sophomore safety — took the ball on a reverse and threw a 57yard pass to Johnson. Easton Miller scored on the next play from 5 yards out, making it a 32-20 game with 2:10 left in the third quarter.
“He’s just a baller and starts on defense for us,” Bentonville Coach Jody Grant said of Pankau. “He’s a former quarterback and can flip it around.”
Fayetteville rallied when Bowers hit Kris Mulinga with a 38-yard touchdown pass with 4:55 remaining. Fayetteville would get one more chance as its defense held Lyons for no gain on a fourth-and-1 quarterback sneak from the Fayetteville 15 with 1:46 left.
Bowers got Fayetteville into Bentonville territory with a 13-yard scramble with 21 seconds left.
Fayetteville, however, was called for illegal procedure when the ball was snapped before officials were ready, then Bowers had the ball stripped two plays later.
“I’m not taking anything away from Bentonville, but we have so many things that we can’t get over ourself,” Fayetteville Coach Billy Dawson said. “Until we get over ourself, we’re going to struggle to win. We have to find a way to get over ourselves.
“That first pass got us, and our eyes are wrong. We’re not disciplined enough and, boom. Good teams hurt you that way. They did.”