BENTONVILLE — Bentonville’s lone offensive play in overtime was one the Tigers actually wanted to run during their final drive in regulation.
It was one worth trying again.
Dallas Hardison faked a handoff to Tearris Wallace, then found a wide-open Joey Youngblood beyond the line of scrimmage for a 10-yard touchdown pass, helping Bentonville open 7A-West Conference play with a 38-34 overtime victory over Fayetteville at Tiger Stadium.
“I probably had the worst seat in the house for the play,” Bentonville Coach Barry Lunney said after the game. “[Offensive coordinator] Barry [Lunney Jr.] talked about doing this play on our previous drive because we had been running out a lot out of that formation.
“We thought if Fayetteville’s defense had lined up like it had been doing, we could fake the counter and let Dallas run the bootleg. If [the Bulldogs] didn’t, we would call timeout and reset, but they did.”
Fayetteville (3-1, 0-1) had reason to focus its attention on Wallace. Bentonville’s sophomore tailback had caused the Bulldogs defense enough problems, runningfor 156 yards and two touchdowns through regulation.
However, Hardison kept the ball and sprinted out to his right. He saw a Bulldogs linebacker heading his direction, but in the right flat was a wide-open Youngblood.
“I went about 6 yards out and found an open spot where Dallas could get the ball to me,” Youngblood said. “It was a great throw to me, and I saw I could get to the end zone. I just got there as fast as I could.”
“We had been running the counter to the left a lot during the night,” Hardison said. “So when I faked the handoff, Fayetteville’s defense bit. All I had to do was dump the ball over the linebacker’s head. Once Joey caught it, I knew it was atouchdown.”
Chad Levin then came on to kick the extra point to give Bentonville (4-0, 1-0) extra cushion if needed for tiebreaker purposes.
“Great play call,” Fayetteville Coach Daryl Patton said. “We thought they’d probably try to run it, and we brought a little pressure and put us in a bind on the edge.
“Great play call and that’s just how you got to draw it up as.”
Fayetteville received the ball first to begin overtime, but Chase Gogel dropped Bulldogs quarterback Brandon Allen for a yard loss in first down. Allen then threw two incompletions, with Tigers safety John Hembry batting the ball away on third down.
Sports, Pages 24 on 09/25/2010