SALT LAKE CITY — One by one, the dominos in front of Corner Canyon have fallen pretty harmlessly this season.
Whether it was a 31-point win over Herriman in Week 2, a 28-point win over Bingham in Week 3, a 34-point win over Skyridge in Week 9 or a 31-point win over American Fork in Week 10, the Chargers have blown out everyone on their schedule — but one.
And that one game is why the rest of the 6A playoffs are loaded with intrigue.
Defending 6A champion Lone Peak had defending 5A champion Corner Canyon on the ropes back in Week 7, but miraculously the Chargers scored two touchdowns in the final minute for an improbable 21-17 victory.
Lone Peak proceeded to lose to Skyridge and American Fork over the next two weeks, and that three-game stretch changed the entire complexion of the 6A playoffs — it gave everyone hope.
Lone Peak proved that it’s beatable, and it also showed for 47 minutes that Corner Canyon is beatable too.
When you factor in all the other head-to-head meetings this year between the 6A quarterfinalists — Herriman beat Bingham, Bingham beat East, East beat Herriman, Herriman beat American Fork, American Fork beat East — predicting what will happen over the next three weeks isn’t easy.
The answers to those questions will begin to unfold on Friday in the 6A quarterfinals.
Two of the four games are rematches from earlier this season and should be very competitive, while the other two look to be mismatches on paper.
“They won it last year, obviously, they have a great defense and they’re playing hot right now. You look at their film, and yeah, they’re tough. They’re going to be a big challenge.” — Kearns coach Matt Rickards about Lone Peak
Bingham hosts East on the same field it beat the Leopards 16-14 last month when it stuffed a late two-point conversion, while Herriman hosts American Fork again after a 34-21 back in September as it pulled away with three touchdowns in the fourth quarter.
East is 0-4 against Bingham since making the jump to 6A in 2017, but the Leopards have improved tremendously since that earlier loss and is anxious for another shot at nemesis Bingham.
“It’s a mental hurdle that our program needs to get over,” said East coach Brandon Matich. “When you play Bingham, as we found out the last few games, they’re going to be pretty steady eddy and efficient in what they do and we can’t make the mistakes that we seemingly always do and they prey on.”
American Fork and Herriman know each other just as well. Friday’s game will be the eighth meeting between the programs in the past six years, with the Cavemen holding a 4-3 edge.
Herriman owns the top scoring defense in 6A this season at 13.3 ppg, whereas American Fork’s offense ranks second averaging 41.0 ppg. Whichever team dictates their preferred style will likely prevail.
Friday’s other two 6A quarterfinals are Lone Peak at Kearns and Syracuse at Corner Canyon.
Kearns and Syracuse are the obvious underdogs in both games, but neither has faced any of the other 6A quarterfinalists so it’s tough to know exactly how they’ll measure up.
“They won it last year, obviously, they have a great defense and they’re playing hot right now,” said Kearns coach Matt Rickards about Lone Peak. “You look at their film, and yeah, they’re tough. They’re going to be a big challenge.”
Kearns didn’t play nearly as difficult a schedule as Lone Peak, but it still went 10-1 and did so by averaging 39.6 ppg. Its playmakers will need to come up big to pull off the upset.
Region 1 champion Syracuse faces its own daunting battle against 6A’s top offense and fourth-best defense.
Syracuse coach Mike Knight said managing the game wisely and not letting things get out of hand early will be key.
“They’ve had a tendency all year to make teams really, really pay for bad mistakes. They create turnovers, they score quickly and before you know it it is out of your hands,” said Knight. “You have to make sure you manage the game as best you can. It has to be a great management game for us, as far as not turning the ball over ad playing great field position.”
Since Corner Canyon’s narrow win over Lone Peak, its average margin of victory over the past four games is 30 points.