High school football: Corner Canyon earns championship 3-peat behind second-half dominance

Thursday’s 6A championship game between Corner Canyon and Lone Peak looked very similar to last year’s title affair between the two teams.

A year ago, the Chargers became just the sixth team in state history to win a championship after being down 14 or more points.

While Corner Canyon never got down by too much on Thursday, it overcame a less-than-stellar first half to beat Lone Peak 35-20 for its third straight 6A title.

“Every coach says it, but (hard work) is 100% the reason why we’re able to be consistently a good team,” Corner Canyon head coach Eric Kjar said. “Without that, without work, you’re nothing.”

1 of 34

2 of 34

3 of 34

4 of 34

5 of 34

6 of 34

7 of 34

8 of 34

9 of 34

10 of 34

11 of 34

12 of 34

13 of 34

14 of 34

15 of 34

16 of 34

17 of 34

18 of 34

19 of 34

20 of 34

21 of 34

22 of 34

23 of 34

24 of 34

25 of 34

26 of 34

27 of 34

28 of 34

29 of 34

30 of 34

31 of 34

32 of 34

33 of 34

34 of 34

Lone Peak certainly didn’t run away with it in the first half, but the Knights looked like the slightly better team.

The biggest issue facing the Chargers was their inability to consistently stop the run game. Lone Peak had 137 rushing yards in the first half and scored 14 points in the second quarter to take a 17-14 lead at halftime.

14 points at the half was a season low for Corner Canyon, which averaged 48 total points per game.

Halftime provided a much-needed break for Kjar to readjust his team, and it showed in the second half. The Chargers surrendered only 34 rushing yards in the second half and held Lone Peak to a single field goal.

“Such a big shift physically,” Kjar said of the difference defensively in the second half. “That was really what we echoed. Our biggest thing was we had to be physical up front and be tough, and we weren’t we felt like in the first half.

“We were way better in the second half. Tremendous physicality and toughness.”

The clear star of the game was Corner Canyon’s Weston Briggs, despite a so-so first half. In the first two quarters he scored once but only had 15 yards on six carries.

However, he reached the end zone three times in the second half and ended the game with 170 rushing yards on 21 carries. He also had big runs late to get the necessary first-downs to put the Knights away.

Briggs’ four touchdown mark ties for the third-most in a championship game in state history.

“All credit to the linemen,” Briggs said. “It was just execution. It was dudes knowing their assignment. The linemen, they just absolutely bumped up to a whole other level.”

Quarterback and Texas A&M commit Helaman Casuga was the only other Charger to reach the end zone Thursday, which he did on a 5-yard run late in the first half.

Casuga ended the game with 150 passing yards and 68 rushing yards. Despite sitting for most of his junior year in 2024, Casuga put up 11,510 passing yards in his high school career, which places him fourth in the record book.

Thursday’s win was all the sweeter for Corner Canyon because it was against its Region 3 foe in Lone Peak. The Knights gave the Chargers their only loss this year, a shocking 42-21 defeat in September.

Briggs said that loss was a big motivator for the domination in the second half.

“Sometimes it takes a failure to bounce back, to learn as a team, to come together,” Briggs said. “I feel like that loss was huge to help us bond together as a team.

“We came together, we worked hard, put in way more effort, held ourselves accountable, no selfishness, and it helped us get that win.”

Thursday’s win is the sixth championship for Corner Canyon and the seventh for Kjar in his career. Kjar is now tied for the second-most championships for a coach in state history, and his record at Corner Canyon is now 112-9.