WSSARIZONA

An hour bus ride down to the southeast valley would mark the beginning of the season for the Willow Canyon Wildcats, as they prepared to face the Arizona College Prep. Knights. The latter knights, being headed by a new head coach, Jacob Rutter, coming off of a Defensive Coordinator job at Highland in Gilbert.

As their first home game of the year, and senior night, the vibes were high in Chandler as the game kicked off the season for both teams. Quickly, ACP got the ball moving on the ground with senior running back Jcory (JJ) Horne Jr. behind their sizable lineman. Horne would quickly put the ball in the endzone giving the Knights an early lead which they wouldn’t look back from.
Horne would tally over 300 yards, setting a school record and netting 3 touchdowns to punch ACP to a 14-49 win. Other notable players from the knights include senior quarterback Gunnar Schmidt who passed for nearly 150 yards (147) on only 6 completions, Schmidt found his fellow senior Dalton Speaks for a trio of touchdowns as well, and over a hundred yards on the night.

The Willow Canyon Wildcats wouldn’t go down without a fight, demonstrating great tenacity and physicality as they battled against their much larger opposing team. Senior quarterback Tate Callan posted over 300 yards through the air and a touchdown, despite the tale of the scoreboard. Over 100 yards from senior WR Tobi Alade topped their offensive production for the night, as the ACP defense constantly forced 3rd and long situations. Defensive ball hawks like Amane Breedlove played great coverage all night for the Knights and totaled up to 10 tackles as a corner. Linebacker Cole Caiazzo and defensive end Enoch Adegoke both nabbed eight or more tackles each including multiple TFLs.

Grabbing his first ever win as a head coach, Jacob Rutter was obviously emotional post game, holding his son in his arms and speaking to the team, he exclaims: “This is only the start, those boys next to you are the only ones here for you, we’ll be back to work tomorrow, more work to be done.” A heavily defensive minded head coach and one of the youngest head coaches in the entire state of Arizona, Rutter is destined to prove a point about the “Prep Way”. Battling in an ever growing 5A division, Rutter is excited about the opportunities to face star-studded talent and compete with the best, “Good.” was the only response he had to facing nearly every team in the Westside Sport AZ (WSSAZ) top 15 5A teams.