American Fork coach Aaron Behm addressed some of the mistakes his team made after the Cavemen routed Lehi on Friday, ending the Pioneers’ 24-game winning streak.

But then he got a big smile on his face.

“62-28 is pretty sweet, isn’t it?” Behm asked.

His players roared with approval.

American Fork rolled to that 62-28 victory with an unstoppable offense that totaled 534 yards and a defense that forced four turnovers. The game was still competitive at halftime (33-21 for AF) but the second half was a repeating parade of Cavemen to the end zone in a battle of unbeaten teams that turned out to be a lopsided win.

“We were just executing and making our plays when they came,” said senior tight end Josh Andrus, who caught one of Dylan Story’s three touchdown passes. “He (Story) is crazy. He played a phenomenal game. We’re not trying to do too much. We’re just getting the ball to our playmakers and doing what we need to do.”

There was plenty of offense to go around for the Cavemen. Running back Jacob Eardley ran for 181 yards and scored four times from inside the red zone. Story was magically accurate the whole game (19 of 21 for 349 yards) and all three of his touchdown passes — to Andrus (32 yards), Davis Andrews (46 yards) and Zane Edwards (12 yards) — came in the second half. Jett Nelson was unguardable, finishing with 168 yards on six receptions.

“We feel like every game we should put 50 points on the board,” senior running back Dax Watts said. “We know we have the tools to do it and we should be doing that every game.”

Lehi took the opening kickoff and smartly drove down the field, getting a great catch from Ezaiah Mama at the AF 10-yard line. Two plays later, Jett Liu connected with Mays Madsen on a 5-yard touchdown pass for a quick 7-0 lead for the visitors.

Watts capped AF’s game-tying drive with a 2-yard run at the 6:32 mark of the first quarter. Literally 15 seconds later, Watts picked off a Niu pass and sped 35 yards to the end zone for a 14-7 American Fork lead.

“Our defense was ready,” Watts said. “Other guys were doing their job and that set me up for that pick six.”

The Cavemen put Eardley to work on their next drive and he blasted in from two yards out for a 20-7 first quarter advantage. Eardley scored again from 10 yards out on AF’s next series for a 27-7 lead, but Lehi found some offense in the second quarter. A 37-yard strike from Niu to Justice Cooper set up a score, with Devaughn Eka taking a short pass across the goal line on fourth down to trim the deficit to 27-14.

Lehi’s defense rose up for a stop and Niu worked a deep crossing route to Madsen to get into scoring territory. The next play, Eka bolted over from 10 yards out and Lehi trailed by just six, 27-21. The Pioneers missed a pair of field goals and American Fork tacked on another short scoring run for Eardley, followed by a two-point conversion from Watts, with 26.4 seconds left and a 33-21 halftime lead.

The Cavemen scored three times in the third quarter as Story found a wide open Andrus for a score, Eardley cashed in on a one-yard touchdown run and Andrews took a short pass 46 yards to paydirt. The rest of the half was played under a running clock and the AF lead reached 62-14 before Lehi added a late score.

“We want to be diverse on offense,” Behm said. “We were able to run the ball tonight. We felt like if we could do that we could open some things up in the secondary and I think that’s what you saw. When we got up a little early we were really able to lean on our tight ends and running backs. We were able to kind of put it away there. Dylan had a great game. We were able to run the ball so he was able to take advantage of a couple of deep shots.”

Lehi, which won the past two 5A titles and hadn’t lost a game since October of 2021, simply couldn’t stop the American Fork offense or overcome the four turnovers.

Stepping up to Class 6A this year and playing in Region 3 will be a challenge for the Pioneers.

“We knew this was a big game,” Watts said. “Our coaches were always talking about American Fork and Lehi was a big rivalry back in the day. We felt we needed to set the tone for them coming into 6A. Losing in the quarterfinals last year, that’s been our No. 1 motivator. Getting to Rice-Eccles (the semifinals and finals are played there), that’s our goal and nothing is going to stop us. No one is going to stop us from getting there.”

Lehi (5-1 overall, 0-1 Region 3) will host Skyridge next Friday. American Fork (6-0 overall, 1-0 Region 3) will travel to Lone Peak.