YUMA - Jamil Hines scored on a 50-yard run on Chandler’s first possession, and the Wolves rolled past Yuma 56-0 here Friday in a 5A nonregion game.
Chandler scored the first five times it had the ball against the Criminals (2-4) and even got a defensive touchdown, a 50-yard interception return from Declan Wall, to put the Wolves ahead 42-0 going into intermission.
Both Chandler touchdowns in the second half came from junior Taylor Walstad, who had scoring runs of 43 and 70 yards.
Yuma fell to 2-4 with the loss.
"We competed throughout the whole game, there's no question about that,"
Yuma coach Tom Fox said. "We got stuck in a Catch-22. The more things we tried to do, the deeper the hole we had to come out of."
Yuma started the game with a solid offensive drive. After a 33-yard completion from Andrew Herrarte to Eric Rivas and a couple of Wolves penalties, the Criminals reached the Chandler 6-yard line. But a couple of Yuma penalties took them out of the red zone and a third-and-goal pass by Herrarte was picked off in the corner of the end zone.
Chandler took over and used its power running game to march over the Yuma defense. After runs of 10, 9, 12 and 15 yards, the Wolves’ drive was quickly finished off by Hines’ long TD run.
The Wolves scored on their next four possessions from distances of 40, 25, 71 and 39 yards.
It looked like the Criminals were about to get something going late in the second quarter when they recovered a fumble by Wolves quarterback Kyle Yount at the Chandler 40-yard line. However, the Yuma offense only moved backward and the half was finished off by Herrarte getting picked off at midfield by Wall, who ran it back for a touchdown.
The Criminals came out in the second half desperate to get something started, so they tried an onside kick. But the Chandler special teams held onto the ball and three plays later they were back in the end zone on a 43-yard run by Walstad.
Chandler (4-1) will stay in the Valley for its next game, opening Fiesta Region play at Gilbert Highland on Oct. 10.
