LONGMONT >> The first few games of a new coach’s tenure can bring a bit of apprehension as well as excitement. Centaurus football doesn’t seem to have any interest in the former.

On Friday night at Everly-Montgomery Field, the Warriors advanced to 3-0 on the season with a 49-7 rundown of Niwot, letting only a few penalties and offensive mishaps get in their way. Head coach Aaron Carlson still believes there’s plenty of wiggle room for improvement, despite the numbers they’ve already been putting up this season with earlier victories over Denver North (31-7) and Boulder (38-7). He hopes his guidance will provide a natural progression from last year’s good fortunes and playoff appearance under Andy Hampton.

“Our team had a great season this past season, and we want to continue that success,” Carlson said. “For us to do that, at our level, we have to play football a little bit differently, and we have to be pretty much on attack mode all the time on offense and defense. We’re pretty aggressive. You’ll see on our film that we throw the ball quite a bit. We blitz quite a bit.”

Sophomore quarterback Halas Wise threw for three touchdowns and 416 yards, but he was far from the only Warrior to put up big numbers. Sophomore wide receiver Jax Lewis caught two of those scores, then added another one with his own two feet, before finishing his night with 170 yards.

The Warriors entered the week earning votes in the Colorado high school football media poll and will almost assuredly earn a few more in the weeks to come if they keep up this style of merciless play.

Centaurus built up the suspense throughout much of the first quarter, keeping the game scoreless up until the 3:28 mark, when Addisu McCormick ran it in from seven yards to begin their ride toward victory. The trudge of that opening quarter turned into an Olympic sprint in the second. Lewis stamped his name into the scorebook early and often, amassing 126 yards through the first half alone while scoring three touchdowns. He connected with Wise on two of those scores for a combined 82 yards, and Nick Parana accounted for the other first-half strut past the pylon.

Niwot started to spell trouble for the Warriors in the first few minutes of the second half. Eli Quesada snatched a pass attempt from Wise right out of the air, and the Cougars converted that stroke of luck into a several-inch touchdown from sophomore Jaydan Martinez, who stepped into the pocket for the Cougars in the first half.

Halas found a new target in the third quarter, launching the ball to Travis Meine for another 22-yard TD, then JR Spence threw his hat in the ring with a 2-yard scoring run at the start of the fourth. The Cougars used the opportunity, no matter how battered and bruised it left them, to sharpen their knives for the rest of the season. It certainly didn’t help that they didn’t have all of the weapons in their arsenal. Some had to sit out due to illness for the second week in a row.

They’ll take their search for their first win (0-2) back home against Skyview next Friday, while Centaurus will try to remain perfect at home against Monarch on the same night. “We have two 4A opponents in a row,” Niwot head coach Nik Blume said. “We competed really well last week against (Thomas Jefferson) — in it, you know, late in the third quarter, and then the wheels kind of came off. We get another 4A this week that was a conference champion. You couldn’t ask for a better opponent as far as setting up your 3A schedule for the rest of the season.”