The Lady Tigers (26-1, 13-0) tied a school record for victories in a single season with their 3-0 victory Tuesday over Rogers Heritage, as well as clinched the 7A-West Conference title and the league’s No. 1 seed for the Class 7A state tournament.

There’s just one thing left for Bentonville to do before the regular season is over, and the Lady Tigers have never done it before: complete an unblemished run through conference play.
Bentonville will try to complete that run Thursday with a home game against Fayetteville, as well as break the school record for wins in a single season.

“That’s something the kids are definitely thinking about,” coach Kent Early said. “14-0 … Wow! That would be quite an accomplishment for these kids.
“We’re supposed to have good weather. Hopefully we will play well.”

Early said the subject of an perfect conference record wasn’t really brought up much but knew it could mount with each win the team picked up.
“We just wanted to play hard and take one inning at a time,” he said. “We never wanted to take anything for granted. As we got closer, we started realizing these things can happen.
“So why not? Shoot, let’s go see what we can do. So we’re going to give it a run. Fayetteville is a tough opponent, so we will have to play well.”

Bentonville will close out the regular season with a nonconference game Friday against Benton at Arkansas Tech in Russellville.

— Henry Apple • @NWAHenry
