GRANTSVILLE — Not very many things went right in week one for the Grantsville Cowboys and first-year head coach Curtis Ware. Not only did they lose the game, they also lost, to injury, team captain and starting quarterback Cody Riding.
Heading into week two of the season, Ware challenged his young team to bounce back from the first week setback and focus on getting better. Ware, who also is the defensive coordinator, knew he needed to get his defense to play aggressively and swarm to the ball. In the first half of the game against Juab, the defense came out aggressively and played extremely hard. The defense dominated the first half, continually stalling drives and forcing Juab to punt on several occasions, holding Juab scoreless in the first quarter.
Offensively, Ware and offensive coordinator Rick Harrison knew they needed to find a replacement for the injured Riding. The decision made was to turn to sophomore backup Coy Johnson. Some sophomores would be nervous to take over the offense, but Johnson is familiar with the pressure as he started at second base for his varsity baseball team as a freshman last spring.
Johnson didn't waste any time getting his team going in his first varsity start. On the first offensive play, he hit Jonah Bartley coming across the middle for a 25-yard gain. Johnson kept the drive going and scored the first touchdown of the game for the Cowboys with a 3-yard run off tackle. Johnson continued to move the offense in the second quarter when he found speedster AJ Rainer streaking down the sideline and connected on a 67-yard pass for the score. On the extra point, Johnson found Riley Smith open in the end zone for a two-point conversion.
Juab was able to come back late in the second quarter and third quarter to take control of the game. Juab scored on a 20-yard pass from Ryker Osborne to Nolan Nielsen and the Wasps were able to keep the scoring going from that point. Juab switched to a trick play for its next score as wideout Tyse Ostler found Peyton Bowring open in the end zone for the touchdown.
Ware's stingy defense came back in the third quarter to set up the final score of the game for Grantsville when Smith broke loose and blocked a punt deep in Juab territory. Johnson again marched the Grantsville offense downfield and found Smith open one more time for a 7-yard touchdown pass to complete the scoring for Grantsville. But the Cowboys still fell to Juab, 41-20.
Defensively, Grantsville was led by Smith with 10 tackles, senior Colton "Crash" Adams with two quarterback sacks and several hurry's, and junior linebacker Burke Boman with eight tackles of his own.
Next week, Grantsville will square off against its county neighbor, the Stansbury Stallions. This will feature a matchup between Stansbury head coach Clint Christiansen and Ware, who was Christiansen's defensive coordinator for several seasons. Game time is 7 p.m at Cowboy Stadium in Grantsville.
Cory Landon is a graduate of the University of Phoenix, a husband, father of four and an avid sports fan.