The Tigers will have a lot of cleaning up to do if they want to be contenders in the 7A-West Conference this season. Fortunately, the fixes do not appear to be major.

Bentonville High, which fell to Kansas City (Mo.) Rockhurst 24-21 on Friday in overtime, was penalized 12 times for 114 yards in the loss. Although six of the infractions were of the major variety (three pass interference, one personal foul for facemask, one sideline interference, and one late hit), those are not the mistakes that drive coaches crazy.

It will be the three delay-of-game penalties that will have coach Jody Grant and his staff working hard to correct this week as the Tigers prepare to host Bixby, Okla.

Twice on Bentonville’s second possession it was hit with delay penalties. Still the Tigers overcame those and managed to drive 80 yards to tie the score at 7-7.

The biggest and most costly delay penalty came when the Tigers could not get the ball snapped on their first play of the overtime period from the 10-yard line. It wasn’t like they were rushed out on the field. They knew they were getting the ball after the Rockhurst possession. But Bentonville let the clock run out, and that 5-yard penalty, coupled with a false start on the next play moved the ball back to the 20-yard line. On the next play Bentonville was intercepted the Rockhurst celebrated the win.

Grant said after the game his team had a lot of areas they need to clean up this week, and in the coming weeks. The first and most important is getting the play in from the sideline to the players.

On the brighter side, the Tigers’ defense played well, especially against the run. Rockhurst managed just 97 yards on the ground as the Tigers got solid play from a host of defenders like Aaron Estrada, Angel Guerrero, Destyn Adkins and a host of others.

Offensively, senior quarterback Cannan Ross was 10-of-13 for 126 yards and a touchdown, and Jacob Clark rushed for 74 yards on 18 carries. Kam’Ron Mays-Hunt was solid on both sides of the ball and in the return game.
