A quick group of Bonney Lake High football players didn’t waste any time making their presence felt Friday evening, traveling to Yelm and snuffing the Tornadoes 50-7, improving their overall mark to 3-1.
While none of these first four contests have counted in the South Puget Sound League 3A standings, the Panthers have thrilled their fans and shown they are ready for the regular season. Bonney Lake has been averaging 40 points per game offensively, while giving up a meager 10 points per contest.
Bonney Lake broke the scoring ice in the Yelm game’s opening minutes when quarterback Chris Brown hurled a 10-yard touchdown dart to wideout Austin Marshall.
The game’s next score came when Panther running back Marcus Kaelin, who accounted for 130 of his team’s 460 yards of total offense, followed superb blocking to bash his way into Yelm’s end zone from 1-yard out.
Already up 14-0 going into the second stanza, Bonney Lake rapidly tacked on three more tallies before intermission as Kaelin galloped 50 yards to paydirt, Brown zipped another TD strike to Marshall and running back Tyler Babukas put an explanation point on the first half scoring with a 25-yard touchdown jaunt to make the score at the break 43-0.
Bonney Lake coach Chad Barrett allowed his No. 1 offensive unit to play one more series of downs and the Panthers scored again. This time the score featured Brown slinging his fourth touchdown pass of the night for a 45-yard catch-and-run score by Kaelin.
Kicker Alex Hall drilled a half-dozen extra points through the uprights.
Brown completed 21-for-28 through the air for 340 yards passing and four touchdowns.
“With the way Brown and the rest of the first string offense has been performing it has kind of overshadowed the way our defense has been so stingy,” Barrett said. “About the only time the front line has given up anything is when we lost our only game of the season to Sumner.”