LAKEWOOD — After a dismal first offensive drive for Arvada West that featured five penalties for minus-40 yards, the Wildcats were nearly perfect from there on out.
The Wildcats scored touchdowns on five straight offensive drives on their way to a 43-7 season-opening victory against Wheat Ridge on Friday night at Trailblazer Stadium.
“The little things just kept on piling up in our heads,” A-West running back Cade Russell said of the opening offensive drive. “We’ll change that next week and get to work.”
Russell didn’t wait for next week to get going. The senior running back found the end zone three times in the first half. He had touchdown runs of 5, 6 and 20 yards while finishing the night with nine carries for 134 yards.
“Cade has come a long ways in three years,” A-West coach Brad Pyatt said. “He is a heck of a back and we are going to ride him this year. He showed tonight that he is a top back in the state.”
A-West junior quarterback Ethan Cook was sharp with a pair of touchdown passes — 15 and 47 yards — to junior Drew Martinez in the second quarter.
The only thing that slowed down the Wildcats with a 30-minute lightning delay that struck with 26.9 seconds before halftime. After the delay, Russell sprinted to the end zone for his final touchdown run of the night on a 20-yard run to give A-West a 36-0 lead.
A-West didn’t cool down in the second half. Senior Jacob Simpson returned the opening second-half kickoff 90 yards to induce the 40-point mercy rule and a running clock for the remainder of the game.
“For this team in six months we know internally and inside the Arvada West family what we have going here,” Pyatt said. “The buy-in these kids have had over the last six months with running track, weight room to Saturday workouts for six to seven months I wanted to see if they could persevere and they did.”
It has been a bit of a struggle for A-West over the past two seasons. The Wildcats went 2-5 during the shortened COVID season last year after going 0-10 in 2019.
Pyatt is high on his senior class that has gone through the rough times.
“They expect to win,” Pyatt said of his senior class.
A-West’s defense nearly shut out Wheat Ridge. The Farmers got a late touchdown run by senior Francisco Munoz and an extra point by junior Taylor Watkins to get Wheat Ridge on the scoreboard.
“It’s my eighth year and I don’t think we have ever been a defense focused team. They year we a defensive heavy,” Pyatt said. “It’s a solid defense and we have an offense that complements them. I’m excited to see where we go this year.”
A-West hosts Legacy at 7:30 pm Thursday, Sept. 2, at the North Area Athletic Complex. Wheat Ridge gets back to work with a non-league game at Evergreen at 7 p.m. Friday, Sept. 3, at Evergreen High School.