Eli Sanders, Chandler Wolves show Pinnacle, nation just how good they are: ‘Their defense is something serious’

The game was into a running clock by halftime, when Chandler led 43-0 with Sanders scoring four first-half touchdowns as part of a career-high 213-yard night.

All the hype surrounding the Chandler football team turns into just white noise when the Wolves cross the white lines.

Now up to No. 5 in the SBLive Power 25 and No. 7 in the USA Today Super 25, the Wolves showed why they might take their place among the best teams in Arizona high school football history again Friday with a 64-0 rout of Pinnacle.

“Their team is very good,” said Pioneers quarterback Devon Dampier. “They’ve got some great football players over there. Their defense is something serious. They showed why they’re (No. 5) in the nation.”

The game was into a running clock by halftime, when Chandler led 43-0 at Austin Field with senior Eli Sanders scoring four first-half touchdowns as part of a career-high 213-yard night against a defense that a week earlier shut down Horizon.

“We’re blessed to be in this position,” said Sanders, a Boise State commit. “COVID hit everyone really hard, and we’re really blessed to even have a season.

“We don’t look at (our rankings) too much. We just look at the now — who we play this Friday, what we need to do to get better.”

Meanwhile, the Wolves defense dominated a Pinnacle team that put up 52 points in its Week 1 victory over Horizon. 

“They’re just playing lights-out right now,” Sanders said. “They’ve got our back, and we’ve got theirs. We’re all really just a unit that works well together.”

After beginning the season with the defending 6A champion (Liberty) and an Open Division qualifier (Pinnacle), the Wolves get a relative breather, opening region play this week against Perry, which lost 64-22 to Hamilton to fall to 0-2.

“We never overlook any opponent,” Sanders said. “We’ll just stick with the game plan and on Friday, put everything we practice onto the field.

“We know we have a talented team, and when it’s all said and done, if we do take that No. 1 spot, we will be excited to be in that position.”

As for the Pioneers, they’ll have two weeks to pick themselves up from Friday’s loss. They were slated to play Salpointe Catholic in Week 3, but the Lancers had to cancel after several students tested positive for COVID-19 last week, forcing the program into a two-week quarantine.

Dampier agreed that how the Pioneers respond will be a critical turning point for the final six weeks.

“They showed us we were not as good as we thought,” he said. “We were a little overconfident after the Horizon game, for sure, but we definitely are still a great team.

“There are so many more games left to be played. This is something we need to learn from. We’ve got to move on to next week, focus on ourselves, and keep getting better.” 

— René Ferrán; photo by Paul Mason

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