High school football: West seizes late first-half momentum to upend undefeated Kearns

Box score

SALT LAKE CITY — West quarterback Carson Lopati looked right and let it fly, hitting Sesi Vailahi in stride streaking down the sideline.

A 62-yard touchdown scored and momentum seized late in the first half carried the Panthers to a 26-17 upset win over undefeated Kearns Friday night — but more crucially, lifted a Rose Park community hit hard by COVID-19.

“This community just needed something to go their way,” West coach Olosaa Solovi said. “It’s definitely bigger than football being in Rose Park.”

Kearns looked ready to roll early. Capitalizing on the first of three first-half turnovers from West for the opening score, running back Naki Leha found the end zone with a 5-yard rush to make it 7-0 with 6:49 left in the first quarter.

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An interception from Lopati set up Kearns with a short field, and Cougars quarterback Iosefa Toia’ivao hit a wide-open Joe Alusa after some play-action trickery for a 15-yard touchdown pass for a two-score lead.

But West knuckled down and seized the momentum back in the last minute before the break and never looked back.

“Our defense really held us in in the first half,” Solovi said. “They could have blown us out by 21 in that first quarter, but they did a great job.”

After Lopati’s long touchdown toss, Bird Butler rose up and picked off Toia’ivao, rumbling for a big return to set up a 47-yard field goal from Yahir Estrada to reduce the deficit to 14-10 at halftime. 

A second Lopati interception led to a short Kearns field goal in the opening of the third quarter, but Butler came up big on offense this time, taking a Lopati pass in the flat 17 yards to pay dirt to make it 17-17. 

West’s defense again clamped down, forcing a fumble and a punt before a crucial bad snap resulted in a Kearns safety to give the Panthers daylight at 19-17 with 6:31 left in the game.

From there, West leaned on running back Johnny Alo to piece together an 11-play drive stamped with a 1-yard scoring dive from the do-it-all Butler to put the game away.

“It just means a lot to our kids, but it’s not over,” Solovi said. “We still have Granger to come over and they’ll be ready to play. We’re just excited, man. We’re extremely excited for our community.”

Lopati admitted he was “shocked” in the aftermath of the upset, but a West team that’s overcome trials on and off the field now owns a statement win in the home stretch of Region 2 play.

“We know we can do it now,” Lopati said. “Anything is possible right now.”