Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Home sweet home Wolverines beat Red’Dogs for first win in new stadium
CENTERTON — A sophomore quarterback led Bentonville West to the first victory in its new home.
Dalton McDonald, starting his fourth-straight game in the place of an injured Will Jarrett, threw for 202 yards and two touchdowns in the second half Friday night as the Wolverines earned a 35-22 victory and handed Springdale High its first loss of the season during 7A-West Conference action at Wolverine Stadium.
“Dalton is really coming into his own,” West coach Bryan Pratt said. “He’s starting to understand what he can and what he can’t do. The game is slowing down for him a little bit. He threw some great balls and some deep balls on some fade routes and gave our receivers a chance to go and get them. That’s what we do.”
Springdale (4-1, 1-1) appeared to have the momentum as Daniel Barroso’s 21-yard field goal as time expired gave the Bulldogs a 16-14 halftime lead. It was set up when Grant Allen’s punt attempt hit a West player unexpectedly on his heel, and Jonathan Lopez recovered the ball to give Springdale the scoring opportunity.
West (2-3, 2-0), however, took the second-half kickoff and needed only six plays to take a lead it never relinquished as McDonald hit Tucker Swoboda in the back corner of the end zone with 9 minutes, 42 seconds left in the third quarter. The Wolverines’ defense, which allowed Allen to have 207 passing yards in the first half, sacked Springdale’s quarterback five times in the second half and held the Bulldogs scoreless on a drive inside the West 20.
“The big difference was up front,” Springdale coach Zak Clark said. “They took it to us. We needed to be able to run the ball, and we weren’t able to do that. They had a good plan, and their guys played a lot more physical than we did. Sometimes you just have to tip your hat to the other team and recognize when they do well.”
After West’s defense forced Allen to throw a ball away on fourth down, the Wolverines scored two plays later. McDonald flipped a short pass to Jadon Jackson, who made his defender miss and raced
untouched for a 76-yard touchdown reception with 1:49 left in the third quarter.
Tanner Anderson later added a 4-yard touchdown run to complete West’s scoring with 5:42 remaining. Springdale then picked up a late score when Allen threw an 8-yard touchdown pass to JuJuan Boyd, his second of the game.
The win capped an emotional week for Pratt, who missed his team’s practice sessions Wednesday and Thursday to be with his father during surgery. He arrived about 10 minutes before the game started.
“We were a little sluggish
at first, and I’ll take the blame for that,” Pratt said. “But what an awesome job my staff did. These guys ran it like it was when I was here, and our kids were mature and did what they were supposed to do.”