WEST VALLEY CITY — The Utah Blaze had hoped to reward their long-suffering fans with a win — or at least a decent showing — in the home finale Friday night at the Maverik Center.
What those fans — all 4,508 in attendance — got, however, was another lopsided score with stretches of nonexistent defense from the Blaze. Until the second half.
That's when Utah's defense showed up to play and the offense found a spark.
But by that time, it was too late and the Blaze dropped to 1-12 after a 67-56 loss to the Jacksonville Sharks.
"We had a game plan all week long to have a kind of bend but don't break defense," said Blaze coach Ron James. "And we kind of did that but had a couple of problems there in the first half."
Specifically, Utah stalled on offense a couple of times, and that proved all the difference.
"We stopped ourselves a couple of times on offense," James said, "and the score cascaded ugly."
With the Blaze struggling to get anything going on offense, Utah hit the locker room trailing 40-14 at the half, as Brett Elliott's passing touch was off. The former University of Utah quarterback completed only 15-of-30 passes in the first half for 156 yards and two touchdowns.
Jacksonville's offense was in fine form, and quarterback Aaron Garcia completed his 1,000th touchdown pass early in the game. The Sharks picked apart Utah's defense with repeated shots to the end zone.
The Sharks scored on every offensive possession in the first three quarters and weren't stopped until there were less than 11 minutes left in the game and Jacksonville held a 67-42 lead.
But as the Blaze got a little confidence, they also got a pair of defensive stops and made things interesting after Elliott found Aaron Boone in the end zone with 38 seconds left.
But with no timeouts left and Jacksonville recovering the onside kick, the Blaze were unable to use their momentum to get any closer.
"We want to see the kind of effort that we had in the second half," James said. "If we do, we'll have a lot better chance to win."
Elliott finished the game with 318 yards and seven touchdowns on 26-of-50 passing.
Boone had nine receptions for 79 yards and three touchdowns to complement the nine catches for 148 yards and four touchdowns by Wendall Williams.
e-mail: jeborn@desnews.com