High school football: West relies on its defense to earn rare trip to Rice-Eccles Stadium

The West Panthers built their success this season around offensive starts such as Louie Hamilton and Kamden Lopati. Along the way, they won the Region 4 championship and earned the No. 1 seed in the 5A state high school football playoffs.

When the pairings were revealed, the Panthers quickly realized their likely path to Rice-Eccles Stadium meant going through defending 5A champion Bountiful.

The Panthers persevered and defeated the Redhawks 14-3 Friday afternoon in the quarterfinals, but they had to rely heavily on their defense.

Hamilton rushed for 161 yards and Lopati threw two scoring passes, but West’s defense need to frustrate Bountiful for much of the day to advance to next week’s semifinal game against fourth-seeded Orem at the University of Utah’s facility.

The finishing touch was a defensive stand in the final minute that prevented Bountiful from reaching the end zone.

The Redhawks’ Lakepa Satula recovered a fumble and returned it 50 yards before being pulled down and Bountiful moved to within the 2-yard line, but with 1:18 left, West 300-pound lineman Alema Malieitulua threw 155-pound Bountiful quarterback Hudson Malmrose out of bounds on a fourth down play to clinch the win.

The Panthers immediately began celebrating that their dream of winning the school’s first state title since 1992 was still alive. West also earned a spot in the semifinals for the first time since 1996, the year after coach Olosaa Solovi graduated from the school.

Solovi said several of his assistants were on that team, too, and are reliving their “glory days” with this year’s squad.

“This (game) was a wild one,” Solovi said. “Our defense and our coordinator, Charlie Faletea, have done a great job all year. It’s been a difference for us.

“We knew Bountiful’s strengths and what we had to do. We’ve had some injuries and we had some young guys in there. We told them they had to make some plays.”

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Hamilton provided most of West’s offense early. The senior workhorse running back had 108 yards by halftime, taking advantage of the Panthers’ offensive line surge that allowed him to average six yards per carry.

West took a 7-0 lead on a 7-yard pass from Lopati to Mani Tu’uao — one of two scoring passes the two combined for during the game.

Bountiful recovered quickly but its leading back, Siaki Fekitoa, had nowhere to run most of the day. Malmrose, however, connected with Tyce Budge on a 33-yard play to set up a 32-yard field goal by Cooper Coleman.

The Redhawks didn’t come close to scoring again until the final minute.

Fekitoa, who concluded his remarkable high-school career that made him the leading rusher in school history, had just 43 yards on 18 carries, and most of those came on a single 16-yard run.

“We left some points out there, that’s for sure, but we didn’t leave out the effort,” said coach Jason Freckleton, whose team bounced back from a 2-4 start to win five of its last six games.

The Redhawks also never generated a passing attack. Malmrose completed four of 12 passes, but with four interceptions. On the final drive, it was apparent that Bountiful needed to run in order to score and West’s defensive line didn’t give up yards easily.

West, now 11-1 overall, is allowing just 7.5 points per game. It has recorded four shutouts this season, and only one team — Timpview, in the season opener — has managed more than 20.

“For us, we’ll do whatever it takes to win,” Solovi said. “We just got to keep playing hard.”

Bountiful finished its season with a 7-6 record. The Redhawks were the No. 9 seed after tying for third place in Region 6.

“That’s a good team over there,” Freckleton said of West. “I don’t know if it’s the best team we’ve played (this year) but they’ll give anyone they play some problems. They made some plays, and we weren’t able to.”