Fugate’s Big Day Leads W.F. West Over Shelton

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W.F. West’s Gavin Fugate totaled six touchdowns Friday night, and the Bearcats ran wild in a 48-6 rout of Shelton to open 2A Evergreen Conference play in style.

The win successfully bounced the Bearcats back from a tough Week 2 loss to top-ranked Lynden, which head coach Dan Hill blamed as much on self-inflicted wounds as anything the No. 1 Lions did.

“Fixing our mistakes was a major focus point this week,” Hill said. “Focusing on us and how we wanted things done, that was a big focus. And it showed up tonight. We had two drops early on that kind of stymied us, but then we got things rolling, started putting up points, got a defensive score, special teams did well.”

Fugate finished 16 for 21 through the air for 238 passing yards. But his first appearance on the scoresheet came at the expense of his opposite number, taking an interception return all the way back 65 yards to put the Bearcats on the board.

After that, the offensive touchdowns came. The first three of them came through the air, two to Evan Stajduhar, one to Cameron Amoroso to wrench momentum back from the Highclimbers with seven seconds left before halftime.

Out of the break, Fugate found the end zone with his legs on a 3-yard run, before capping off his night with one last strike to Stajduhar.

“Tonight he made the right decisions,” W.F. West coach Dan Hill said. “He was a great senior quarterback tonight.”

Stajduhar had a breakout game in his own right, totalling 127 receiving yards on six catches. Amoroso had three receptions for 48 yards, and Tucker Land added 30 receiving yards to his 48 on the ground.

W.F. West’s defense added two fumble recoveries to Fugate’s interception to total three takeaways, forced the Highclimbers to punt six times, and stopped them six times behind the line of scrimmage.

And a week after Hill saw a tight matchup against Lynden turn into a blowout in the third quarter, the Bearcats just kept sailing smoothly the whole way through.

“The thing I’m most proud of for our boys is that we played better in the second half than we did in the first half,” He said. “That’s something that we’ve stressed the past week or two.”

W.F. West will head to Black Hills next week to take on the undefeated Wolves.

Fixing our mistakes was a major focus point this week. Focusing on us and how we wanted things done, that was a big focus. And it showed up tonight. We had two drops early on that kind of stymied us, but then we got things rolling, started putting up points, got a defensive score, special teams did well. The thing I’m most proud of for our boys is that we played better in the second half than we did in the first half. That’s something that we’ve stressed the past week or two.