SAN JOSE — Before the SaberCats routed the Portland Thunder 64-45 on Saturday night at the SAP Center, there was a scarcity of San Jose receivers among the Arena Football League’s offensive leaders.

D.J. Stephens may soon change that.

Stephens caught 10 passes for 171 yards, the highest single-game receiving totals for a SaberCats receiver this season. He also hauled in three of quarterback Erik Meyer’s seven touchdown passes as San Jose ran its season-opening unbeaten streak to five games.

“He’s young, he’s athletic,” SaberCats coach Darren Arbet said of Stephens. “There’s room for improvement, but he has a high ceiling. He could be one of the good ones to play arena football.”

Stephens’ 114 yards in the first half were more than any SaberCat had accumulated in any of the first four games. Reggie Gray finished with 97 yards against the L.A. KISS on April 4.

That no SaberCat was among the AFL’s receiving leaders, or even had a 100-yard game, before Saturday shows just how many weapons San Jose has.

“We’re deep,” Gray said. “Any one of us receivers can put up 100 yards any week. Defenses can’t key on any one of us.”

Stephens’ first TD reception against Portland (2-2), a 23-yarder, helped the SaberCats go up 16-0 in the first quarter. His second, for 43 yards, widened the Cats’ lead to 37-6.

Those TD catches were two of five that Meyer threw in the first half, four of which went for 20 yards or longer. Darius Reynolds hauled in a 20-yard TD pass to put San Jose on the scoreboard in the first quarter and Adron Tennell caught a 23-yarder in the second.

Meyer was 20 of 30 for 283 yards and one interception.

Gray and Reynolds finished with two TD catches apiece. Gray also returned a kickoff 56 yards for a touchdown just before halftime, giving San Jose a 44-19 lead at the intermission.

It was Gray’s second kickoff return for a TD in as many games.

Although the game’s outcome was never really in doubt, Portland made things more interesting than the SaberCats would have liked toward the end. Twice in the second half the SaberCats permitted the Thunder to cut 32-point leads down to 19.

Defensive back Ken Fontenette, who had a team-high with 8½ tackles and an interception, said the SaberCats won’t be able to get away with that against three-time defending champion Arizona on Saturday.

“We’re upset right now,” Fontenette said. “We wished we’d finished them off a little more. Credit Portland — they played hard the whole game. But we’ve got to do a better job of finishing (teams) off.”