The Millard West Wildcat football team took on the Burke Bulldogs at home Friday, August 6th. The Wildcats went into this match-up as the 7th ranked team in the state taking on the 3rd ranked Bulldogs.

Last year, these two teams faced off twice, once in the regular season and once in the playoffs, Bulldogs winning both of them. There was no doubt that the Wildcats walked into this game with some revenge on their minds.

The game started off with the Wildcats kicking a 35 yard field goal and taking the early 3-0 lead with about nine minutes left in the first quarter. The Wildcats strike again with senior quarterback Tristan Gomes throwing a 22 yard pass to senior wide receiver Dalys Beanum, putting Millard West up 10-0 in the closing minutes of the first half.

It was all West in the third quarter as they kept the 10 point lead. That was until the Bulldogs finally take the goose egg of the board with a 34 yard strike to Bulldogs’ Xavier Watts to bring the deficit to 10-7.

With about 10 minutes to go in the fourth quarter, the Wildcats put the game away with a 90 yard kick return for a touchdown to extend the lead 17-7. With about one minute to go, Gomes runs it in for a one yard touchdown to secure the 24-7 win against Burke.

Gomes went 5-11 with 53 yards passing and a touchdown, plus one on the run. The Wildcats leading rusher was running back senior Ethan Valencia with 10 carries for 105 yards and was a game changer for the Cats on the ground. Tristian Gomes’ leading target was senior Kaedyn Odermann with two receptions for 28 yards and one touchdown pass.

For the Bulldogs their leading passer was senior quarterback Reid Burke. He was 11-18 with 107 yards passing and a touchdown pass. Their leading rusher was Tonio Clark with 20 carries for 73 yards. The Bulldogs leading receiver was Xavier Watts with eight receptions for 87 yards and a touchdown.

Millard West had 285 total yards of offense compared to the Bulldogs 160 yards. Mainly those yards came from the ground for the Wildcats with 232 yard with three turnovers between both teams with Burke coughing up two and the Wildcats one. Millard West lead in first downs with 19 while Burke only had 10.

“The biggest thing was our defense,” head coach Kirk Peterson said. “As a whole, we played very well, yet we still have lots of things to improve on. “Offensively, it was a struggle because of the pressure they were bringing on. The special teams was a huge part of the game, we return a kick for a touchdown that swung the momentum back on our side”. Peterson said. “We are pretenders at best right now. We have so much to improve on as individuals, as units, as a team.”

Tonight, the Wildcats take on Omaha North next. The Vikings are 1-1 coming off a big win over Omaha Northwest 56-0 with their only loss is overtime to Creighton Prep 24-21.