By Jon Johnson
SCOTTSDALE – A more than two-hour lightning delay couldn’t slow down Scottsdale Christian Academy as quarterback Sean Helgeson threw for 156 yards and two touchdowns and running back Everett Salazar hit pay dirt three times en route to a 33-6 drubbing over visiting Pima.
“You take it and you gotta learn from it,” said Pima head coach Josh Wilkins. “We don’t lose like this. We gotta learn from this right here. This isn’t Roughrider football.”
The game was billed as the spotlight opening game for the Arizona Interscholastic Association and was televised live. However, Pima was without its starting quarterback, Cedrick Grimes, who dislocated his elbow during a scrimmage with St. John’s the previous week. Grimes is expected to miss up to a month.
Sophomore Ryett McBiles was tapped in place of Grimes and went 11-24 for 116 yards and two INTs.
While it was easy to see why the offense could be on shaky ground to start, Pima’s defense also came out flat and couldn’t stop the Eagles, who scored touchdowns on each of its first four possessions.
Helgeson hit a 32-yard TD to Kyle Olafson to break the ice on SCA’s first possession, and then set them up with a first and goal with a 22-yard strike to Isaiah Steffen on their next possession. Everett Salazar got the first of three TDs on the night with the 1-yard plunge, and Scottsdale was up 14-0 – then the lightning came.
The teams had a 2:20 lightning delay as storms went through the area. When play resumed, Helgeson started right where he left off and hit Dom Dickerson on a 53-yard TD.
Scottsdale Christian added one more score before halftime when Salazar capped off a drive with a short TD run to put the Eagles up 27-0 at the break over Pima.
Pima started to get it going in the third quarter as McBiles and Keegan Corona connected for 30 yards across midfield. Joe Palmer then got a head of steam, and the Roughriders were in a good position.
“We had some real good sustained drives that second half once we kind of settled in and knew what we needed to do,” Wilkins said. “Defensively, I think we had a little bit of a shell shock. We just came out here and let the hype get to us. We gotta come out locked in, ready to play from the get go . . . We can’t spot teams points like that and expect to win games.”
Unfortunately for the Roughriders, Joseph Kassisieh read McBiles’ pass and snagged the INT. Kassisieh nearly took the ball back the distance, but McBiles ran him down. SCA capitalized on the turnover with Salazar’s third TD on the night to put them up 33-0.
Pima’s lone score came off a drive late in the third quarter that was accentuated by runs by Joe Palmer and Rooster Alder, who started the offensive drive by picking off Helgeson. Alder took the ball down to the 1-yard line on a run, and Palmer finished it from there to avoid the shutout, 33-6.
Pima head coach Josh Wilkins said his team would learn from the game and come back stronger.
“We face adversity and we thrive off it,” Wilkins said. “We gotta buckle down. We gotta get back to the drawing board – make sure we know our jobs, doing our jobs. We’re a good team. I still think we’re going to be there in the end.”
“We’re going to learn; we’re going to be better, and we’re going to be back,” Wilkins said. “We’ll play them again.”
Pima will get a chance to even its record next Friday when the Roughriders travel to Tombstone to face the Yellow Jackets, starting at 7 p.m.
