CENTERTON -- Fort Smith Northside was content at first to take its time and use long, sustained drives to score its points.
The Grizzlies, however, couldn't resist the opportunities to pick up the scoring pace when Bentonville West had a problem with turnovers.
Northside produced 27 points off four first-half turnovers, and the Grizzlies set up a rematch with defending state champion Bryant with a 47-21 victory during the opening round of the Class 7A state playoffs at Wolverine Stadium.
"Our defense picked up a bunch of turnovers, and we took advantage of them," Northside Coach Mike Falleur said. "We're very happy with that. We played good until right there at the end, when we tried to put everybody in and made some mistakes."
Northside (7-4) scored on every first-half possession, and the first two drives were purely methodical behind its running tandem of Sundquist Church and Ty Massey. Church's 1-yard touchdown run capped a 13-play, 85-yard opening drive that took almost 6 minutes off the clock, then Massey bolted 33 yards for a score and ended an eight-play, 80-yard drive.
West (6-5) had a counter for Church's score and led 7-6 after Jake Casey's 7-yard touchdown pass to Carson Morgan, but the Wolverines' next four possessions ended with turnovers. Northside defensive lineman Julius Thomas was the beneficiary of two fumble recoveries -- one on a bad exchange between Casey and Morgan and the other coming after Aaron Carter sacked Casey and popped the ball loose.
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"Our team did a good job of doing their job," Thomas said. "Everybody followed their assignments, and when the ball came out we were all trying to get to it. I just had good ball awareness."
Massey made sure that Thomas' efforts didn't go to waste as he scored on runs of 12 and 13 yards and extended Northside's lead to 27-7 with 6:07 left before halftime. Moody McCabe then came up with the Grizzlies' third fumble recovery 2 minutes later, and that led to Walker Catsavis' 30-yard touchdown pass to T'Kavion King two plays later.
RJ Lester's first of two interceptions then came on West's next offensive play, and Northside turned it into a 40-7 cushion on Damari Smith's 25-yard touchdown run with 1:08 before halftime.
"We knew they were a good football team," Wolverines Coach Bryan Pratt said. "We knew we were having to make sure we were playing well, and you can't turn the ball over. In the first half, we didn't punt. We just turned the ball over every time."
Church added an 11-yard touchdown run in the third quarter and forced the running clock to be used. He wound up with 204 yards on 21 carries, while Massey added 144 yards and his 3 scores on 16 carries -- an effort that even left Falleur a little stunned.
"I didn't know that," Falleur said. "I've been doing this a long time, and I've never had a one-two punch like that. They're really good players, but I think both of them will tell you it's the offensive line that makes it work."
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