Wright starts early, rolls Palo Verde to win at Cimarron

It didn’t take long for Brandon Wright to establish himself as the right option for Palo Verde’s offense.

The Panthers’ senior running back had 22 carries for 227 yards and four touchdowns to power No. 2 Palo Verde to a 34-7 road win over No. 7 Cimarron-Memorial on Friday night.

Wright’s overall performance was excellent, but he also quickly put the Panthers (5-0, 3-0 Northwest) in control.

Wright’s three touchdowns on his first four carries — all to the right corner of the end zone — that put Palo Verde ahead 21-0 with 4:24 left in the first quarter.

“Brandon kind of got off in the first half,” Palo Verde coach Darwin Rost said. “He’s got that great speed. But Brandon is like a coach out on the field. He does a great job of keeping his teammates fired up.”

Wright said keeping his offensive line engaged was key to his success.

“I just talked to my linemen a lot,” said Wright, who moved past 1,000 rushing yards for the season. “I just have to keep them hyped up, because when they are hyped they really block. We just have to keep them up to that high level.”

The Panthers’ linemen helped their team rack up 375 rushing yards in the game.

Wright helped them get off to a great start. On Palo Verde’s first play from scrimmage, he took a handoff on a play meant to go inside that was bottled up, and instead bounced it right to the sideline and raced 56 yards to the end zone.

Wright then started the next possession with a 27-yard run, and capped the drive with a 5-yard scoring dash to the right pylon.

But his third score — on just his fourth carry — was his most impressive of the evening.

Wright took the handoff at the 43, ran towards the right sideline, then bobbed and weaved his way down the field, breaking four tackles as he cruised into the end zone.

“My reputation has been to run out of bounds,” Wright said. “So I’m running on the sidelines, and they think I’m going out of bounds.

But I said no, cut back underneath, and they didn’t expect that. Then I made them miss and I was just looking for the house.”
Wright added one more run to “the house” in the third quarter on a 20-yard sprint to the right pylon to up his season touchdown total to 15.

While Wright was rolling the offense, the Panthers’ defense stymied the Spartans, holding leading rusher Christian Brown to 24 yards on 12 carries, and limiting Cimarron’s offense to 161 yards overall.

“That kid (Brown) is very special,” Rost said. “He’s coming off a game where he had over 320 yards, so that was our focus — to shut him down. I thought our kids did a great job.”

Joshua Symonette and Doug Stultz each had a pair of sacks for the Panther defense. Chaisson Prescott recovered a fumble and Dylan Shanteau grabbed an interception for Palo Verde.

Gerard Martinez threw for 118 yards to lead the Spartans (2-2, 2-1). His 38-yard TD pass to Brown in the second quarter cut the Panther lead to 21-7. But Palo Verde opened the second half with an 11-play drive capped by Jonathan Maxwell’s 1-yard touchdown run that kept the Panthers in control.

Wright said that, while winning at Cimarron was an important step for Palo Verde, his team could not get too caught up in the victory.

“Our main thing this season is to get better each week,” he added. “Just because we have a nice little win under our belts doesn’t mean we can take off next week. We have a short week, and we have to come back just as hard next week.”