Prairie Grove tames Gravette

PRAIRIE GROVE — Blake Faulk accounted for 238 total yards of offense and scored five touchdowns as Prairie Grove won its fourth straight game with a 44-19 win over Gravette on Friday night.

Sam Dodd added a pair of touchdown throws and finished with 193 yards passing for the Tigers (4-1, 2-0 4A-1 Conference), who gained 367 yards of total offense on their way to 476 yards overall.

Faulk finished with 147 yards rushing on 18 carries, and he added 91 yards receiving on a pair of catches — including a 59-yard touchdown pass from Dodd in Prairie Grove’s home opener.

“I’ve never had a five-touchdown game,” Faulk said. “It just felt amazing, just the fact we were running on them and being able to score on them that many times, that easy and that fast was just sensational for all of us.”

Bryce Moorman was 13-of21 passing for 222 yards and three touchdowns for the Lions (3-2, 1-1), who had their three-game winning streak ended with the loss.

Jackson Soule added five catches for 101 yards and a pair of touchdowns for Gravette, which struggled to run the ball inside against Prairie Grove — finishing with 105 yards rushing on 31 carries.

“They did a great job with that,” Gravette coach Bill Harrelson said. “I mean, they were real physical up the middle and we didn’t get it done up the middle tonight, for sure.”

In addition to their tough run defense, the Tigers also snared three interceptions in the win.

Prairie Grove opened the game with touchdowns on each of its first five possessions, with Faulk scoring on four of the drives.

The senior scored three times in the first half on short touchdown runs, and he also hauled in the 59-yard touchdown pass from Dodd — with Faulk’s 2-point conversion run putting the Tigers up 287 midway through the second quarter.

Dodd’s touchdown pass was his second deep completion of the half, coming less than two minutes after he completed a 63-yard score over the top of the Gravette defense to Heltemes.

Faulk added his final

touchdown of the half following a lost fumble by the Lions on the kickoff, powering his way in from three yards out. Dodd then found Heltemes in the right flat for a 2-point conversion to give

Prairie Grove a commanding 36-7 lead.

“We just give it to him,” Prairie Grove Danny Abshier said. “… He runs it really hard, and he was making yards. It was a consistent yardage, which is what we need to do while every once in a while dropping a pass off there.”

Gravette closed to within

36-19 in the third quarter after Moorman’s third touchdown pass, a 21-yard completion to Brady Rolsma.

However, Faulk answered with his fifth score of the game on the following drive —bouncing off several Lions defenders while bursting up the middle for a 40-yard touchdown run.