Showdown with Jones on Friday
Chandler opened its district season impressively on Friday, shackling the Crossings Christian Knights, 36-0.
It was the Lions’ second shutout in four games and sets up Friday’s game with Jones as a battle for the pole position in District 2A-2.
The Lions and Jones opened their district schedules with wins and share the district lead with Kellyville, also 1-0.
Chandler’s defense was in control of the game from the start, allowing the Knights only one drive that resembled a scoring threat.
And the longer the game went, the more dominating the Lions’ defense became.
“We’re doing some good things on defense,” said coach Jack Gray. “Coach Peery is doing a great job and the defense looks solid.
“After our scrimmage with Heritage, I thought we had a pretty good shot at shutting people out.”
Spencer Clagg led the Lions’ defense with eight tackles, including four unassisted. Dalton Fowble had seven stops and Blake Rickner and Traydon Richardson had six each.
The game was played with a brisk southerly breeze, with most of the snaps on the north side of the 50-yard line.
And that was where the Lions built their first-half lead, getting a 46-yard field goal from Konnor Almond and a 10-yard pass from Kaden Jones to Spencer Clagg to make it 9-0.
Clagg later dove into the end zone after a bruising run to close out the third quarter and extend the lead to 16-0.
Chandler finished with three south-bound touchdowns in the fourth quarter, with Jarin Greenfield taking a direct snap and scoring from 5 yards out, Drake Rodriguez picking up a bouncing punt and taking it 90 yards to the house and Casmen Hill breaking outside to the left and going 84 yards to score with 1:08 left
“Offensively, we did not play our best overall,” Gray said. “They had a good system they were using, but we had some people open and we dropped some balls. The ball was moving from side-to-side in the wind.
“We came out in doubles and tried to mess with their outside backers, but with the wind, we decided it was going to be an oldschool night where we would try to impose our will.
“And that’s what we tried to do.”