One big game leads to another.

The Hot Springs Savage Heat raced past the Valier Panthers 56-28 in Valier Friday, setting up the Heat’s next big game. Now 3-1 in Western 6-Man conference play and overall, coach Jim Lawson and his Heat head to Lincoln Friday for a key date with the likewise 3-1 Lynx.

The Savage Heat have been accomplishing great things in spite of the fact that they have very few players, going with only seven total currently. “We have had to make a lot of adjustments as we go,” Lawson said. “We are just so darned short-handed, it has been a challenge at times.”

Although numbers challenged, the Savage Heat have also been a challenge to keep up with once they are on the field, in spite of their low numbers of players. The game with Valier – a team Lawson described as “big, strong and athletic” – was no exception.

“It was one of those games where the kids had to work pretty hard,” he said. "And it turned out to be a pretty good win for us.”

Junior quarterback Ben Aldridge was the catalyst for the Heat in Valier, rushing the ball 22 times for 200 yards and scoring four touchdowns overall, while also completing five passes.

Although the game ended up being high scoring, it was a defensive battle in the first quarter, which ended with Hot Springs leading 8-0 on the strength of a three-yard touchdown run by Samson Jakabosky with the two-point kick by Chase DePoe tacked on.

In the second quarter, after Garret Monroe scored on a 33 yard run to draw Valier within one at 8-7, Aldridge tallied his first TD on a 10 yard run and DePoe added the two-point boot. Monroe then took the ensuing kickoff back 57 yards for a touchdown and added the one-point conversion run to close the Panthers within two at 16-14.

That would be as close as Valier would ever get after that as Aldridge answered Monroe’s kickoff return immediately with a 75-yard return for a touchdown on the next play

and, after DePoe’s successful two-point kick, the Heat added a safety right before halftime to take a 26-14 lead.

In the second half, Aldridge (on a 27 yard run) and Jakablosky (three-yard run) scored in the third period, and Bill DeTienne (on a 42-yard interception return) and Aldridge (on a 20-yard run) closed out scoring for the Heat.

DePoe finished the game seven of eight on two-point conversion kicks.

Lawson said his boys look forward to mixing it up with Lincoln Friday. “They are a little short-handed like us, but also a little bigger overall than we are,” he said. “They have a little more beef, we may have to make some more adjustments as we go.”