Mountain Ridge guarantees at least a share of Region 2 title
Since its opening in 2019, Mountain Ridge has never won a football region title. After last week’s win over Herriman, the Sentinels gave themselves the best shot they’ve ever had, and a win over Westlake in Week 9 would secure at least a share of it.
“We have a very competitive region from top to bottom,” said Mountain Ridge head coach Nick Robins. “Our staff and players have been prepared each week, and have overcome a lot of adversity.”
In one of its most important games in its short history, Mountain Ridge executed and held Bingham to just one touchdown as it cruised to a 35-6 victory last Friday.
“I’m proud of how our team handled themselves on Friday,” Robins said. “They stayed composed, played physical, and did their jobs.”
It didn’t take long for the Sentinels to take a commanding lead. A quick 76-yard touchdown pass from Jaxon Hunt to Tytan DeJong opened the scoring and Hunt further pushed the lead to 14-0 with a touchdown run with just two seconds left in the first quarter.
The Sentinels’ defense has come up big in many of their biggest games this season. They gave up only seven points to Lehi, eight points to Herriman and six points to Bingham. The lone Bingham score came early in the second quarter on a touchdown run from Cole McKinney.
“Bingham is extremely well-coached and has a great tradition, and our defense has been great all year with their preparation. Friday night was no different,” said Robins.
Hunt continued to have a nice night as he connected with Kohen Cunningham on two long touchdown passes, a 27-yarder in the second quarter and a 98-yarder in the third quarter.
Ashton Gates finished off the scoring in the fourth quarter on a 64-yard touchdown run.
A win against Westlake in Week 10 would give Mountain Ridge an outright region title.
“We know there’s more work ahead, and our focus stays on continuing to get better,” Robins said.
Bountiful smothers Brighton, creates three-way tie at top of Region 6
After being battle-tested in its nonregion schedule, Brighton looked to be among the best in Region 6. The Bengals opened region play with three consecutive wins over Viewmont, Olympus and Woods Cross.
However, that win streak came to a halt in Week 9 as Bountiful took away any breathing room for Brighton in a 13-3 victory. The Redhawks lost to Woods Cross in Week 6 and needed to win Thursday to stay in the region title race.
Bountiful struggled to score through most of Thursday’s game, but Siaki Fekitoa made sure it had a healthy lead after the first quarter. Fekitoa scored all of Bountiful’s 13 points in the first quarter on two touchdown runs. He ended the night with two touchdowns and 186 rushing yards on 26 carries.
Fekitoa’s efforts were helped along by Bountiful’s stifling defense. The only offense Brighton got going all night was a 41-yard field goal from Kaden Hansen just before halftime.
“That was a great team win at the right time of the season,“ said Bountiful head coach Jason Freckleton. ”Our defense played lights out against a really good offense.
“Credit to our defensive coaches and players for preparing hard all week and playing with confidence in each other. We need to continue improving and we are focused on our next opponent and the opportunity to go 1-0.”
The win keeps Bountiful alive for a share of the region title, but also created an interesting situation wherein Region 6 might have three teams share a region title.
Bountiful, Brighton and Woods Cross all hold a 3-1 Region 6 record and none of the teams play each other in Week 10. Bountiful plays Olympus, Brighton plays Alta and Woods Cross plays Viewmont.
Any of those three teams that wins in Week 10 guarantees a share of a region title, while a loss would exclude it.
Stansbury survives miracle comeback from Sky View
For three quarters of Thursday’s game with Sky View, Stansbury looked like the clear-cut winner, especially after a 20-point third quarter lifted it to a 47-21 lead.
Disaster struck in the fourth quarter though as a surge of offense from the Bobcats nearly pushed the game to overtime. Luckily for the Stallions, they held on for the 47-46 win.
It’s the first time Stansbury has beaten Sky View since they first met in 2017.
“There is plenty that we can learn from this game and hopefully will help us be able to put away a team through the playoffs,“ said Stansbury head coach Jason Walker. ”We are excited to make a run and prove we can hang with the top programs in 4A.”
The Stallions had no shortage of offense throughout Thursday’s game. Carter Petersen opened the night on a 15-yard touchdown run just minutes into the game and quarterback Brighton Reutzel then threw for five touchdowns and rushed for another.
Sky View managed to reach the end zone a handful of times, but by the time the fourth quarter rolled around Stansbury already held a seemingly insurmountable lead.
The Bobcats took advantage of Stansbury after it rolled out its sub-varsity defense after the commanding lead and scored twice. Sky View’s defense then forced two consecutive turnovers which allowed it to score two more times in the final four minutes.
A touchdown from Sky View’s Jack Clark brought it within 47-46, but a missed PAT allowed Stansbury to scrape by for the one-point victory. The Stallions’ largest lead was 26 points which it held early in the fourth quarter.
“For a while, it seemed like we couldn’t execute anything correctly from the correct calls by coaches and the execution of what was called by the players,” Walker said.
“Despite having everything go wrong, we still had played well enough through three and a half quarters to get the win. We are not as focused on the score of this one as much as how well we played through three quarters.”
Big win over Juab gives Cedar City its first outright region title since 2006
Cedar is currently having one of its best seasons in school history and it is on the cusp of its first-ever undefeated regular season since first fielding a team in 1949, though its game against Juab in Week 9 nearly spoiled its outright region title hopes as the Wasps took a 21-0 lead in the second quarter.
Cedar answered with a commanding second half, however, and earned a 41-35 victory.
“Extremely proud of the young men and coaches in our program for their grit and toughness,” Cedar head coach Tye Hiatt said. “You never want to be down in the game 21-0 but everyone kept playing, everyone kept coaching and never gave up.”
After an 18-yard touchdown pass from Juab’s Price Armstrong to Kaeden Christensen gave it a 21-0 lead early in the second quarter, Cedar scored five consecutive touchdowns to retake the 35-21 lead.
Cedar’s Braxton DeMille, Gavin DeMille, Dylan Crowley and Everett Kelling each shared the scoring load. Kelling in particular led the way with three rushing touchdowns and one passing touchdown in the win.
Despite taking a 14-point lead, Juab didn’t go away and a touchdown run from Brock Richards in the fourth quarter brought it back within seven.
However, a 3-yard touchdown run from Cedar’s Braxton Demille put the game back out of reach for Juab and secured Cedar the win and the outright 3A South title.
Not only is it the first region title since 2010 (Cedar shared a Region 9 title with Hurricane), but a win in Week 10 would tie its longest-ever win streak at 10 and give it its first-ever undefeated regular season.
Arguably, the last time Cedar had as good of a season was 1998 when it won 10 games in a row to reach the 3A championship against Dixie. However, Cedar is still searching for its elusive first state championship win.
“For this group of young men to come together and do something that hasn’t been done in a long time, it’s been special to go out and compete with them every week,” Hiatt said.
Kanab wins clash of 1A titans in overtime victory against Duchesne
The race for the top spot of the 1A RPI rankings has largely been a three-team race among Kanab, Duchesne and Beaver. In Week 8’s RPI ranking, Duchesne held the top spot with Beaver in second and Kanab in third.
That top three may be flipped on its head after Kanab earned a gutsy 35-28 overtime win against the Eagles on Friday.
It was a back-and-forth affair all night. Kanab was first to strike with a 14-0 lead after touchdown runs from Degan Swapp and Hayden Gubler. But Duchesne answered with two back-to-back scores from Wyatt Christensen.
The game stayed tied 21-21 at halftime and was pushed to overtime after the game stayed stalemated 28-28.
“A lot of credit to Duchesne. They are all well coached and have no quit in them,” said Kanab head coach JR Quarnberg. “They lost their starting QB in the opening possession and we jumped out to a 14-point lead, but Duchesne kept playing tough. We had to adjust our defensive game plan with their change at QB.”
When overtime came, Kanab executed both defensively and offensively. Gubler earned the win offensively with the 20-yard touchdown run on the first play of overtime. He ended Friday’s win with three rushing touchdowns.
The Cowboys’ defense then clutched the win with a walk-off interception.
“Proud of our guys for playing tough in overtime, scoring on the first play on a great run by Gubler behind Brayden Johnson, Walker Baird and Kolton Blomquist and then Cam Cartwright coming up with a walk-off interception defensively,” Quarnberg said.
Kanab looks to have a strong claim for the top seed in the 1A postseason with wins over both Duchesne and Beaver.
Its only loss of the year was to San Juan in Week 3.