LAKEWOOD — Wheat Ridge’s Gino Tate made sure his team had everything under control from the opening play.
The senior ran for three touchdowns and passed for another Thursday afternoon as the Farmers opened the Class 4A Mountain League by blasting visiting and previously undefeated George Washington 46-8 at a sparsely attended Jefferson County Stadium.
Now 4-2 overall, the Farmers had The Denver Post game of the week under control from the opening play and are looking for bigger things after humbling the Patriots (5-1).
“We just came out and we knew they were 5-0,” Tate said of the Patriots. “We were the underdogs. The guys were blocking well and gave me time.
“We just know as seniors that it’s our last year and we want to make a good run for the playoffs. We can’t lose another game.”
Wheat Ridge coach Stacy Coryell said he respected GW’s athletic talent.
“We didn’t want this to turn into a track meet,” Coryell said. “We had to get a hold of them early.”
They did. The Farmers punted on the opening series, then took over.
Wheat Ridge’s Carlos Shippley picked off the Pats’ Javian Byrd on the next series and the rout was on.
Payton Dietrich scored on a 2-yard run and Tate followed with a 1-yard scoring run. GW was guilty of snapping the ball over its punter’s head and out of the end zone on consecutive possessions, and the Farmers used a late barrage in the second quarter to build a 33-0 halftime lead.
They had a running clock on the Pats with 6:35 left in the third quarter.
Wheat Ridge added two more interceptions, forced GW to give it over on downs and blocked a punt.
Coryell said he was glad his guys didn’t fool around.
“It’s what I’ve been preaching to them,” he said. “Are we contenders or pretenders?”
Tate added a 49-yard touchdown toss to Xavier Dreiling and Dietrich’s second score also covered 2 yards.
George Washington 0 0 0 8—8 Wheat Ridge 14 19 13 0—46
WR — Dietrich 2 run (Seal kick). WR — Tate 1 run (Seal kick). WR — Safety, ball snapped out of GW end zone. WR — Safety, ball snapped out of GW end zone. WR — Tate 1 run (kick failed). WR — Tate 10 run (kick blocked). WR — FG Seal 43. WR — Dreiling 49 pass from Tate (Seal kick). WR — Dietrich 2 run (kick failed). GW — Everett 60 pass from Byrd (Mitchell pass from Byrd).
Neil H. Devlin: ndevlin@denverpost.com or @neildevlin
