Chaparral’s TyRay Collins stars on both ends in victory

TyRay Collins ran for two scores on offense and intercepted three passes on defense to lead Chaparral High School to a 14-6 victory at Bonanza High School in the season-opener on Friday night.

Collins finished with 128 yards on 10 carries while sophomore Sheik Fofanah also rushed 11 times 95 yards.

Junior Kyle Allison made his first start for Bonanza (0-1) and was 12-of-22 passing for 70 yards and a touchdown. The Bengals, however, turned over the ball twice deep in Cowboys territory.

The visiting Cowboys (1-0) were pass-heavy last season, but relied on the ground game on Friday night and finished with 269 rushing yards.

“I didn’t expect so much running coming in since we passed a lot last year,” Collins said. “From the flow of the game, our running game was working so we stuck with it. We got a lot of big bodies up front this year, so we used them.”

Chaparral sophomore quarterback Iopu Tauili’ili struggled in his first varsity start, and had issues handling snaps. He lost only one fumble, but it was a crucial one — on the first offensive play of the second half deep within Cowboys territory.

Seven plays later, Allison found Armani Burns to give the Bengals a 6-0 lead lead with 7:21 left in the third quarter.

Chaparral found its running game, though, and Collins countered with a 41-yard touchdown run less than two minutes later.

Collins picked off Allison’s deep ball on the ensuing possession, and said “on film, I noticed that they try the long ball a lot … My coaches wanted me to play deep a bit.”

Collins broke through a hole along the left side for a 15-yard touchdown run with 2:10 left for his second score, and iced the game by picking off Allison on another long pass with 1:33 remaining in the fourth quarter.

“The kids always seem to step up for us,” Cowboys coach Paul Nihipali said. “We have been in this position before. We are young and we will get better. You take a win any way you can take it.”