High school football: San Juan dominates Emery in 2A title game, makes it a resounding 4-peat

Box score

San Juan’s fourth straight state championship Saturday night featured something none of its previous three did — the mercy rule running clock.

San Juan’s margin of victory during its state titles in 2021, 2022, 2023 were 15, 20 and 13 points respectively, even though realistically the outcome was never in jeopardy.

Saturday’s 2A title game at Southern Utah University wasn’t nearly as competitive.

The Broncos dominated from start to finish, building a 35-0 halftime lead and rolling to a fourth straight title with a resounding 60-14 win over an overmatch Emery team.

San Juan becomes just the eighth program in state history to win at least four consecutive titles.

“My first four years we were bounced out in the quarterfinals. We were 0-4 in the quarters to start off. This school, the kids, the community, everybody’s just bought in and it’s kept grinding and this is exactly where we want to be,” said San Juan coach Barkley Christensen, who improved his coaching record to 74-21 with the blowout win.

San Juan beat Emery by 41 points back in Week 6 this season, and eight weeks later not much had changed.

“Obviously we know what they’re going to come out doing, so we had to take away their big plays because w know they can’t drive the field on us,” said Jagger Nieves, who had another outstanding game for the Broncos with 198 yards of total offense and three touchdowns.

Of Nieves’ 198 yards, 140 came on the ground on 13 carries.

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The ground game is where San Juan did most of its damage both offensively and defensively. It rushed for 293 yards on 45 carries while Emery’s run game couldn’t get anything going with just 12 rushing yards.

Realistically, the game played out pretty much how Christensen expected, which he said is what makes his team so special.

“This is just what they’ve done week in and week out. It’s just another game almost, and I don’t want to take away from this moment because it’s a great moment but that’s why this team is so dangerous. Anyone can score at any time. They’re all weapons,” he said.

As for trying a fifth straight state title, Christensen said his younger players are already talking about it.

“They want to just pick up where everyone is leaving off,” said Christensen.

Duchesne (2010-2013), Millard (1950-1953), Orem (2017-2020) and Timpview (2006-2009) are the four other programs that won four straight, but all came up short on a fifth straight state title.

Skyline won five straight from 1995-1999 for the third-longest streak, with East (1917-1923) in second and West (1898-1905) in first.

San Juan started quick on Saturday, scoring on its first two offensive possessions — a Branten Bethea 8-yard TD reception and a Nieves 25-yard march into the end zone.

“They just jumped all over them from the beginning. That was our whole goal, is we had to start fast,” said Christensen.

The offense stalled a bit on its next possessions with punts, but it ended the half with TDs on three straight possessions to extend the lead to 35-0 by halftime.

Nieves accounted for two of those TD runs, giving him a hat trick of TDs in the first half, while Bethea caught a second touchdown from Jaiten Knight.

Knight added another passing and rushing touchdown in the second half.

After San Juan extended the lead to 41-0 early in the third quarter, Emery finally got on the scoreboard as Treven Gilbert connected with Porter Hurdsman on a 46-yard touchdown pass.

Gilbert added another TD pass to Hayden Abrams in the fourth quarter as he finished the game having gone 20 of 40 for 268 yards.