SALT LAKE CITY — The Bingham Miners may not be the high school football superpower they used to be, but Friday night’s 29-28 overtime win over the East Leopards may still go down in school football lore with all of their region and state championships.
Senior quarterback Troy Mehn revived the Miners’ inconsistent offense with four straight completions — two near the end of regulation that led to the game-tying touchdown and two more in the extra session — as Bingham survived and gained a step closer to a Region 3 title.
Mehn’s final pass was a short, 2-yarder to Joshua Woolf on a two-point conversion. With fans on both sides of the field on their feet, Mehn lofted the ball high into the air and Woolf cradled it across the goal line, but his momentum forced him to fall about a half-yard short. He quickly got up to run back into the end zone, but a nearby official had already ruled the catch was good.
The Bingham sideline celebrated as the other officials gathered to confirm the play. After a short discussion, the call was made and — without further review — it remained and gave the Miners their fourth-straight victory and kept them in first place in the Region 3 standings.
It was a surprising finish since East led for much of the game. Paced by sophomore running back Amini Amone, who finished with 157 yards and two touchdowns, the Leopards owned a 21-7 lead for much of the third quarter.
Bingham scored its first touchdown on the first drive of the game, but was unable to dent East’s defense afterward. The Leopards even stopped the Miners following two misfired punt snaps, but a third error gave Bingham the ball on the 15-yard line and Mehn found Isaiah Glasker open for a touchdown.
A series of impressive defensive plays by East’s Orion Maile-Kaufusi kept Bingham from getting any closer, but Mehn then started to find some magic and got the ball to Glasker for a 64-yard pass with less than a minute remaining in the third quarter to cut the deficit to 21-14.
“There was a point in this game that I wondered if our players were going to roll over and quit or step up and give us a chance. They decided to step up and compete which gave us a chance,” said Bingham coach Dave Peck.
East stuffed the Miners’ next two running plays, but then Mehn found Parker Gurr open for a touchdown that tied the contest 21-21, forcing overtime.
The Miners won ensuing the coin flip, but couldn’t stop East. Under Kansas Playoff rules, the Leopards took the ball at Bingham’s 25 yard-line and fed the ball to Amone and I.J. Sula, and Amone eventually took advantage of his team’s line surge to score on a fourth-down play from the 1 yard line.
Bingham took its turn and, after Mehn was sacked, he helped the Miners regain the momentum by connecting on two straight passes. On first down at East’s 10 yard line, Cael Wightman surprised the crowd by taking a handoff and running untouched for the score.
The Miners prepared for the ensuing extra-point kick, but the Leopards jumped offside. With the ball moved half the distance to the goal line, Bingham coach Dave Peck took a risk and went for the win.
“I asked Josh Johnson our O-coordinator if he had a play that he really felt good about and he said ‘yes,’ so I told him to go for it,” said Peck.
Bingham had just 56 yards rushing, so Mehn faked a handoff, drifted to his right, then turned around and lofted a pass to Woolf, who had just one official catch all season, and he added his name to Bingham’s long list of football tales.