Tigers make their way to Harmon Field

Bentonville coach Jody Grant brought up an interesting fact Wednesday when he was asked about his team’s game Friday night at Fayetteville — nobody on the Tigers’ roster has played a varsity game at Harmon Field.

The two teams played at Tiger Stadium two years ago, and Ryley Martin recovered a Darius Bowers fumble with 12 seconds to preserve Bentonville’s 32-27 victory to open league play. The 7A-West Conference had its scheduling format changed before last year’s game, and the two teams played again in Bentonville in a game the Tigers won 24-20 after Harrison Campbell’s 56-yard touchdown reception with 47 seconds remaining.

“This group of seniors hadn’t played there,” Grant said. “Now we’re going down to their place, so it will be interesting.”

Bentonville (6-0, 3-0) has won the last 13 regular-season meetings against Fayetteville, although the Tigers’ last three wins have been for a combined 12 points. The Tigers will need to keep that streak alive if they want to retain at least a share of the league lead, which also depends on the outcome of the Bentonville West-Springdale Har-Ber game.

Of the four teams in the upper half of the conference standings, Bentonville will play the other three teams on the road this season.

“It worked in our favor last year when we had all three of them at home,” Grant said. “So it’s good on the even years and not so good on the odd years.

“It’s important to our kids to win the conference. We always know that if we’re going to win the conference, we have to beat Fayetteville to do it. So this is a big matchup this week against a quality opponent, so we’re looking forward to it.”