Defense play pleases coach in Bentonville’s big blowout

BENTONVILLE — The Bentonville Tigers were dominant from the opening kick to the final gun in an 84-0 thrashing of Rogers Heritage on Friday night.

The game started and ended with interceptions by the War Eagle offense. On the second play from scrimmage, Dominic Casteneda tried a double pass that ended with offensive lineman Connor Autrand being intercepted to Kyndrick Williams.

That set up the game’s first score on Jason Gilmore’s 1-yard run. In the final seconds of the fourth quarter, Coke Butler picked off a Heritage pass and returned it 35 yards.

“I thought we clicked really well offensively early on. We were really on both sides of the ball, proud of the way our kids played. We did take advantage of every offensive possession,” Bentonville Coach Jody Grant said. “Defensively, we were able to force punts early and often. And so that’s kind of what made the score get a little bit lopsided early on in the game, but I’m proud of the way our kids play.”

In the first half, Tigers quarterback Carter Nye completed 8 of 9 passes for 197 yards and 4 touchdowns. He connected with Luke Coon on consecutive scores from 21 yards and 46 yards in the first quarter.

“We flipped a switch after [a loss to Kansas City] Rockhurst, and that’s good for the defense to shut somebody out, go into next week confident,”

Nye said. “It was just, you know, flip a switch. That’s not who we are. We got to get back to playing with a chip on our shoulder.”

Nye found University of Arkansas commit CJ Brown from 23 yards out to push the lead to 35-0 with 11:26 left in the second quarter, and Que Brown on a 19-yard touchdown to make it 49-0 with 4:36 left in the first half.

The Bentonville defense allowed 84 yards in the first half and just 4 yards were rushing. The Tigers allowed 172 yards total.

“That was a big deal for our defense. We have struggled at the end of the half and the end of the game in the last two games and given up some unnecessary points,” Grant said. “So that was the emphasis is to really be more efficient defensively and get off the field. Then anytime you get to, you know, have a better starting field position than your opponent, especially when you know you’re going in inside the 50 … we basically flip the field, so yeah, just excited about how that looked.

In the second half, Grant was able to give his entire bench playing time and that was important to him and the staff. Not only to get them meaningful reps but to reward them for the effort they have put into the season.

“We were able to give the whole second half to our subs. And they operated really good,” Grant said. “A lot of guys got carries. A lot of guys got opportunities. Everybody that dressed tonight, I believe, played and lots of reps. Lots of people played tonight that hadn’t played yet, so as their coach, that’s exciting.”