Throughout the 2025 season, it has been widely assumed that Milford had the best shot at denying Rich a three-peat in the 1A eight-player football league.
The Tigers will now get their shot.
The No. 2 seed Tigers throttled No. 6 seed Monticello 83-24 in the 1A semifinals on Friday night at SUU, scoring 55 straight points during one stretch in the first half. They led 77-12 at the half.
Monticello just had no answer for Milford’s speed on both sides of the ball.
“We’re hitting where we want to be, right at the right time, and got everybody healthy. It’s a fun ball game,” said Milford coach Thane Marshall.
“Speed kills. I listened to a radio announcer the other day that said in 11-man you want big guys and eight-man, you want fast guys, and that’s basically what it is.”
Milford quarterback Carson Cheney had an extremely efficient game passing as he completed 6 of 12 passes for 195 yards and five touchdowns. Four of those TDs went to Boston Sullivan.
Kyzler Merryweather added a pair of rushing TDs as five different ball carriers combined for 254 rushing yards.
Even the defense got in on the scoring multiple times as Griffin Walker, Sullivan and Merryweather all scored defensive touchdowns.
With the win, Milford will now turn its attention to the championship game next Saturday at Zions Bank Stadium in Herriman at 1 p.m.
“They’re well-coached, they’re (a) well-disciplined team, and we’re gonna have to bring our A game,” said Marshall of Rich.
The top two teams in the eight-player league met back in Week 2, with Rich getting a late touchdown to prevail 25-18.
This is Milford’s first season playing eight-player football, and that Rich loss was just the second game of the Tigers getting used to the nuances of the game.
“I felt like it was not a very good game for us. We didn’t know how to coach eight men yet,” said Marshall. “We didn’t have kids in the right place.”
Based on Friday night’s throttling, Milford has clearly figured things out.