Arlington Heights football continues stellar start, trounces Fort Worth North Side

The Fort Worth Arlington Heights Yellow Jackets and Fort Worth North Side Steers both came to Farrington Field Friday night to see who would get their third straight win.

It was the Yellow Jackets that come home with a sweeping 69-0 victory.

“North Side is a great football team,” Arlington Heights defensive coordinator Pat Jones said. “They’ve got some great players, but I think tonight was clearly about our team and getting our team ready for further games and going off and playing the rest of the district.”

The Yellow Jackets started their night off strong with a touchdown made by quarterback Kaeden Grant with 8:18 left on the clock in the first quarter bringing the score to 8-0.

Shortly after, the Yellow Jackets made yet another touchdown. This time by DeShaun Long with 1:55 left on the clock, ending the first quarter with a score of 16-0.

Starting the second quarter off even stronger the Yellow Jackets scored four more touchdowns leaving the score 45-0.

“I told this kids the main thing I want to look at on video is that we are playing fast, we are playing hard and we are giving great effort,” Arlington Heights Head Coach Curtis James said. “We can coach after that.”

And one of the focuses of the coaching staff is a tough offseason and tough practices.

“We put it in on purpose to challenge us so I want to see that play out in every game,” James said. “They really did tonight.”

The Yellow Jackets knew what they showed up for already having two wins under their belt for this season with North Side in the same position. Going up against what looked to be a formidable adversary, Heights seemed to have no plans of letting up on the Steers.

“They came out and challenged us and punched us in the mouth and our guys had to answer and the young kids answered tonight,” James said.

The Yellow Jackets continued to answer. Moving into the second half blazing through the sideline and tearing nearly halfway down the field, Christopher Wrighten Jr. made a touchdown with the help of his teammates blocking the Steers leaving the score to 52-0 with 11:45 in the third quarter.

Then in the fourth quarter, Jayden Lee made back to back touchdowns bringing the final score to 69-0.

“It’s 100% not the outcome we wanted, but what defines you as a football team is how do you bounce back from adversity,” North Side head coach Michael Connelly said. “I expect great things coming from our kids next weekend and the rest of the season because I know one thing about North Side kids, they are going to fight and they are going to come back.”

They will get that chance to try to bounce back when they play Paschal next Friday, September 20 at Farrington Field.

While the Yellow Jacket defense shutout the Steers, players still have improvements they want to make as their team progresses in the season.

“We did good,” Arlington Heights quarterback Kaeden Grant said. “We’ve still got a lot to work on. We got too many penalties.”

Arlington Heights will hope to continue its undefeated season next week when they play South Hills on Friday, September 20, at Clark Stadium.