AMHERST — After Amherst and West Springfield traded touchdowns on their opening possessions, the Terriers kicked off to the ‘Canes midway through the first quarter.

Amherst kick returner Ty-Ty Beckett scooped it up, made a West Springfield defender miss and cut it to the outside. Beckett used his speed to out run the rest of the Terrier special teams unit as he dashed into the end zone. While he celebrated the score down on the south end of Community Field, the head official was announcing a holding call on the north end – bringing the ball all the way back to the Amherst 17-yard line.

An eventual turnover on downs led to a West Springfield score, and the party was on for the Terriers in Amherst.

The Hurricanes were held without a point the rest of the way as early missed opportunities plagued them in a 52-8 blowout loss on Friday night, putting West Springfield (7-0, 4-0) in first place outright in the Suburban South.

Amherst (4-3, 3-1) dropped to second in the league.

“We started out good, we started out hot,” Hurricanes head coach Vinnie Guiel said. “First drive I was like, ‘OK, this will be the type of game we expect it to be.’ We kicked off, they scored right after us, then we housed their kick return but it called back for holding. Then from there it was just downhill.”

West Springfield has now scored 44 points or more in six straight games, and its lethal offense was on full display in Hampshire County. Quarterback Nate Stone accounted for four touchdowns (two passing, two rushing), wide receiver Johnny Gingeruha found the end zone twice on a pair of end around plays and the early dagger was an 85-yard strike from Stone to junior wideout Jaeden Beaumont – a perfect ball down the sideline that hit him in stride.

Defensively, Amherst quarterback NeNe Fernandez was running around in the backfield all night. The West Springfield pass rush – spearheaded by Abel Varzeas and his three sacks – relentlessly pressured Fernandez, and aside from the first drive, where he ran for 44 yards and a touchdown and threw for another 16, not much went his way.

“They’re confusing to block, on offense they do a lot of things right and defensively we were down two starters,” Guiel said. “Hats off to West Side. They were the better team tonight.”

Stone’s second touchdown pass went to Brady Paquette on a play-action fake in the second quarter. Paquette came wide open across the middle, and the misdirection fooled the ‘Canes as the junior running back took it in from 34 yards out to boost West Springfield’s advantage to 30-8.

Amherst had its chances to get back in the game, but drive after drive stalled despite promising moments. Throughout their games this year, the ‘Canes have relied on Fernandez to hit deep shots to his talented play makers. But with defenders in his face immediately and one of his top targets Raymond Colon exiting the game due to injury, every snap became increasingly difficult.

“I’ll have to go back and watch film, but there were two sideline shots that we had wide open and NeNe threw them out of bounds,” Guiel said. “He had a weird night tonight. Right away in warm ups he was a little off, so we’ll have to figure that out. Then Raymond went down, and we had to put someone in who doesn’t get as many reps in that spot.”

Most of the Hurricanes sideline was rightfully disappointed with the result. They have one more regular season game with Agawam next Friday at 7 p.m. on the road.

“We’ve got Agawam next week,” Guiel said. “We’ll watch some film, we’ll handle some stuff internally and we’ll go from there. We gotta keep fighting. Keep fighting. We’ll be fine.”