High school football: Corner Canyon receiver Noah Kjar takes center stage in 6A championship win

SALT LAKE CITY — Corner Canyon’s Noah Kjar called shotgun in Friday’s 6A championship.

The week prior, the junior took a backseat to his teammates as Lone Peak’s coverages took him out of the game, but on Friday he took center stage.

Kjar caught touchdown passes from Cole Hagen in the first, second and fourth quarters and finished with 91 yards to punctuate the Chargers’ second straight undefeated state championship season.

The week before, he caught a career low one pass for 13 yards, but his coach and father said he wasn’t fazed whatsoever.

“He was so pumped to beat Lone Peak, he didn’t care. He’s always had a great approach for that kind of stuff,” said Corner Canyon coach Eric Kjar.

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In Noah Kjar’s 38 games over the past three seasons, he’d never caught less than two passes prior to the Lone Peak game. In the previous meeting against Lone Peak six weeks earlier, Kjar caught eight passes for 117 yards, but the Knights were committed to shutting him down in the semifinal rematch.

Even though it was a bit discouraging individually, Kjar took it all in stride.

“Last week the coverages were completely different. I feel like Lone Peak tried to take some of us away and they kind of had me doubled all that game, but it opened Talmadge (Handley) and Cody (Hagen). They had big games — that’s just how this team is. We don’t really care about the stats. We just play for each other,” said Kjar.

Coach Kjar said that his son’s lack of production last week had a lot to do with Lone Peak’s coverage, but also the way the offensive game plan unfolded.

Noah Kjar was involved in the game right away on Friday, hauling in a 14-yard TD pass for the game’s opening touchdown. He added a 15-yard score late in the second quarter, which came 1:22 after American Fork had scored, to push the lead to 21-7.

He might’ve even had a fourth touchdown on a 40-yard catch in the third quarter but the ref ruled he was down at the 1-yard line after fighting through two tacklers and lunging to the goal line.

Kjar said American Fork’s defense wasn’t any different than the first meeting when he caught five passes for 111 yards.

With his 91-yard performance, Kjar moved up to 11^th on the career receiving yardage list with 3,015 yards.

In January, he’ll get back to work in the weight room in hopes of adding a third straight state championship, and it’s that offseason regime that he attributes to Corner Canyon’s success.

“I think it starts with our process in the offseason,” he said. “We start lifting 6 a.m. start of January and we go all the way through to right now to this moment, and I think all that time put in helps us prepare the way we do and play the way we do week in and week out.”

• Watch replay: Corner Canyon 49, American Fork 14