MAGNA — The Snow Canyon Warriors had Friday’s game at Cyprus circled on their calendars for a long time.
Since last November, to be exact, when they lost a hard-fought 4A playoff game at Park City. With the start of the 2020 season in jeopardy since March, the Warriors took another bus ride north, then took out their frustration on the Pirates.
Bretton Stone ran for 162 yards and two touchdowns, Braxton Hickman was a force on offense and defense and quarterback Landon Frei got into a comfortable rhythm as Snow Canyon dominated 6A’s Cyprus 42-0 in the season opener for both teams.
“I knew we had this in us, but I really didn’t know what to expect the last five months,” said Snow Canyon coach Mike Esplin. “Expectations in the world being the way they are … a lot of unexpected things happened.”
And it happened on the field, too. Snow Canyon took the opening kickoff and, helped by a series of successful short laterals from Frei to Stone, took a 7-0 lead. Those throws seemed to give Frei more confidence.
Before the late-arriving fans — all of them wearing masks and happy to do it — could find their seats for the 5:30 p.m. kickoff, the Warriors had already started to take advantage of Cyprus mistakes, like an offsides penalty on a third-and-5 play that gave Snow Canyon a first down, and then a shanked 11-yard punt.
Coming into the season, Snow Canyon’s strength was expected to be its offensive and defensive lines, but they also showed potential at the skill positions. The Warriors led 14-0 at the end of the first quarter and then Hickman added a couple of touchdowns to boost the margin.
“We expected to come out firing,” Hickman said. “It felt good to be back (playing). It has been stressful. When we scored on that first drive, it pushed us forward.”
Cyprus never mounted a threat. The Pirates had the ball for just 12 plays in the opening half and managed just 2 yards. They also fumbled once, were stopped short on a fake punt and had a nice punt return negated by an illegal block penalty.
Snow Canyon, meanwhile, kept pouring it on with big plays. Frei connected with Hunter Johnson on a 35-yard scoring pass just before halftime and the score was 35-0, which meant the second half started with a running clock due to the UHSAA’s “mercy rule.” Cyprus had its best drive of the day — nine plays — but it chewed up half the quarter and still ended with a punt.
Three plays later, Stone took a shot lateral, bounced off a Cyprus tackler, got around the end, sped down the sideline and put the finishing touch on the day on an 81-yard score.
Cyprus finished with just 31 yards of offense. Jhdhan Lester had a few good runs, but they never came on consecutive plays. Quarterback Rush Monsen’s three pass completions netted just 18 yards, giving the Pirates plenty to work on to prepare for next week’s game at Ridgeline.
Snow Canyon, meanwhile, must wait again. Its Week 2 contest against an American Samoa team was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic.
”We’ll have to wait some more,” Esplin said. “At least, I hope I can watch some other teams play.”