ROGERS — Heritage gave running back Zac Stewart a wagon and the junior filled it up with a school-record 270 yards rushing, leading the War Eagles to a 64-45 victory against Springdale here Friday night.

The homecoming victory secured the War Eagles (6-2, 3-2) their first Class 7A playoff berth in their second season of existence. The victory also broke a two-game losing streak after Heritage won its first five games in a row.

The two teams combined for 977 yards total offense with Heritage picking up 530 of them. That included a school-record 311 yards on the ground.

Heritage coach Perry Escalante said the 64 points scored in conference play was no surprise.

“If our offense is clicking, yeah we can (score that many),” he said. But he also said he never thought he’d see a 270-yard rusher in the War Eagles’ offense this early in its history.

“Well, no, we’re trying to develop a run game,” he said “‘Stewy’ did a great job tonight. We loaded that wagonand he hauled it tonight.”

Stewart rushed 30 times and scored on runs of 50 for a 64-39 lead, 20 for a 50-33 lead and 9 for a 28-21 lead in the second quarter. He dove out of bounds at the 2 with under 1 minute left to play and also caught four passes for 55 yards.

Springdale quarterback Joseph Calcagni completed 27 of 50 pas ses with two interceptions for 347 yards and four touchdowns. Two of them went for 9 and 2 yards to Justin Bocchino. He also completed a 30-yarder to Blake Fogg and a 13-yarder to T.C. Barkey.

“Our defense just never got settled in tonight,” Escalante said. “But boy they got stops when we needed them. We got enough and enough turnovers that there was a difference.”

Heritage receiver Grant Driver had two of quarterback Reed Brown’s three touchdown passes, one for 54 yards and a 43-27 lead, and one for 14.

Brown, who completed 13 of 25 passes with an interception, also connected with Travis Entwisle for a 67-yard scoring strike. Brown threw a rope down the line of scrimmage and Entwisleblew through two defenders.

Brown also scored on an 11-yard run.

Entwisle returned a punt 76 yards for a touchdown on the final play of the third quarter to lift Heritage to a57-33 lead.

“We just got beat,” Springdale interim coach Dennis DeBusk said. “They just flat whipped us. That’s all there is to it. They deserved to win the game”

Springdale lost two fumbles and two interceptions;

three of the turnovers led to Heritage touchdowns.

Barkey scored on the ground twice, the second time with 21 seconds leftin the first half, pulling the Bulldogs (3-5, 1-4) to within 36-27 at the half.

Heritage answered with three touchdowns in the third quarter to begin pulling away from the Bulldogs.

Sports, Pages 8 on 10/28/2009

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