SALT LAKE CITY — No wonder Harvey Langi is being so heavily recruited.
Against one of the better defenses in Utah, the Bingham star running back carried the ball 21 times for 222 yards and four touchdowns to lead the Miners to a 49-26 victory over rival Alta at Rice-Eccles Stadium lat Saturday night.
It was a rare blowout in what has been the best rivalry in the state the past five years, with the previous eight meetings being decided by a combined 50 points. That wasn't the case up at the U.
In improving to 2-0 this season, it's tough to argue that the Miners don't deserve their lofty national ranking.
It took Bingham a while to get going.
The Miners ran just nine plays in their first two offensive series, surrendering two sacks, one interception and netting just five yards of total offense.
The offense eventually got going, and the Miners looked every bit the part of the No. 5 team in the country.
On the first play of Bingham's third series, Langi raced 57 yards up the left sideline before being tripped up inside the 10 yard line. Two plays later Langi powered his way into the end zone from four yards out to put Bingham up 6-0. It elected to go for the two-point conversion after an illegal substitution penalty on Alta, and Langi easily ran it in for the 8-0 lead with 37 seconds remaining in the first quarter.
That subtle penalty had Alta chasing points the rest of the game.
Alta responded to Bingham's score with a 36-yard touchdown pass from Boston Handley to Mitch Casey. Instead of taking the easy point and kicking the extra point, Alta went for two and missed.
Later in the quarter, Alta suddenly found itself trailing by two scores when Langi scored on another four-yard TD run extending Bingham's lead to 15-6. The methodical 12-play drive covered 58 yards but not one play was for more than eight yards.
Bingham maintained the lead until halftime, but quickly extended it to 22-6 early in the third quarter as Josh Smith hauled in a 34-yard touchdown pass from Stefan Cantwell.
Alta wouldn't go quietly though. It cut the deficit to 22-12, only to see Langi boost it back to 28-12 on a 45-yard touchdown run.
The Hawks whittled the lead back to 28-18 on Boston Handley's third touchdown pass of the game with 8:44 remaining in the game. It went for two again, but failed for the third time.
Bingham finally put the way on its next possession with Langi bursting through the line of scrimmage again on his way to a 50-yard TD run.
The Miners' defense took over from there.
Jared Afalava returned a Handley interception 20 yards for a touchdown extending the lead to 42-18. Two plays later, Logan Parker picked off Handley again and returned it to the two yard line, with Inoke Taufalele scoring one play later to make it 49-18 with 6:43 remaining.
Handley finished the game completing 21-of-41 passes for 274 yards.
e-mail: jedward@desnews.com