SALT LAKE CITY, Rice-Eccles Stadium: Three years. That's how long Skyridge has waited to get back to a 6A championship game, and for most of Thursday night it looked like the Falcons were going to leave this building the way they left it the last two Novembers. Quietly. Heartbroken. Staring at a scoreboard like it owed them money.
Instead, the top seed pulled a full Houdini. Skyridge came back from 10 down in the third quarter, came back from 10 down again in the fourth and beat No. 4 Herriman 35-34. Jagger Fountaine faked a pitch and scored from 2 yards out with 2:04 left. Herriman ripped the kickoff back to the Skyridge 20 and lined up for a 32-yard field goal with 1:19 to play. Wide right. Skyridge kneeled it out and is going to the title game.
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| Moment | Score |
|---|---|
| End of the first quarter | Skyridge 14, Herriman 7 |
| Halftime | Herriman 21, Skyridge 14 |
| Late in the third | Herriman 24, Skyridge 14 |
| 1:22 left in the third | Herriman 24, Skyridge 21 |
| First play of the fourth | Herriman 31, Skyridge 21 |
| About 10:00 left | Herriman 31, Skyridge 28 |
| 6:26 left | Herriman 34, Skyridge 28 |
| 2:04 left | Skyridge 35, Herriman 34 |
Keep that table handy, because you will want to show it to someone who missed this game.
Groundhog Day at Rice-Eccles
Skyridge won the first state title in school history in 2022. It went back to the final in 2023 and lost 41-27 to Corner Canyon. Then the program woke up in the same stadium, in the same round, and Lone Peak was waiting there like Bill Murray's insurance guy. Lone Peak beat the Falcons in this exact semifinal at this exact venue, 28-21 in 2024 and 13-7 last November.
You can only tell a team "next year" so many times. Skyridge was down to its last one.
A first half with no brakes
Herriman's quarterback scrambled right and scored at the pylon for a 7-0 lead. Skyridge answered with a long touchdown drive, then blocked a Herriman punt and cashed it from the short field. 14-7 Falcons after one, and this thing was already moving like a car chase.
Then the Mustangs got off the mat. A long, punishing ground drive tied it at 14. A Skyridge kickoff return ended in a fumble under a hit, Herriman jumped on it and scored a few plays later, and it was 21-14 Herriman at the break. Skyridge had one more swing, driving into the red zone, but its field goal try on the last play of the half hit the upright. Of course it did. That's how the day was going.
The second half nearly got ugly
In the third quarter, Skyridge drove down to about the Herriman 5, then fumbled on a missed exchange at the mesh point. A drive that should have flipped the game instead gave Herriman the ball, and the Mustangs ground out 13 plays for a 19-yard field goal and a 24-14 lead.
This is where a lot of teams fold like a lawn chair. Skyridge hit the gas instead. Fountaine took the Falcons 80 yards in 49 seconds, finishing with a 57-yard touchdown pass to Trey Harper on a rollout right, and just like that it was 24-21.
Herriman did not blink. On the first play of the fourth quarter, running back Filisi Filipe hit it up the middle and kept going for 61 yards and a touchdown. 31-21. Somewhere in the stands a Skyridge parent was breathing into a paper bag.
Fountaine and the escape act
Then came the play of the day. Fountaine got swallowed by pressure on what looked like a certain sack, wriggled free like Houdini's understudy, kept his eyes downfield and hit Malosi Shepard for a 29-yard touchdown. 31-28 with about 10 minutes left, and the whole stadium suddenly had opinions.
Herriman answered with a field goal, 34-28, with 6:26 to go, after Skyridge stopped it on third and 1 at the 7 and held it to three. Skyridge's answer was a 12-play drive that ended with Fountaine faking the pitch, tucking it and strolling in from 2 yards out. 35-34. The Falcons' first lead since the first quarter.
Skyridge coach Justin Hemm called his quarterback an "ultimate competitor" to the Deseret News. Fountaine finished 20 of 34 for 367 yards and two touchdown passes, and ran for two more scores, according to the Deseret News. That is a video game stat line, and he put it up in a playoff game.
Herriman did everything but win
Give the Mustangs their flowers. Through three quarters, Herriman's offensive line was winning up front, the Mustangs kept running it, and they got pressure on the quarterback, at times sending seven off the right edge. This felt like an upset in the making. It almost was.
Filipe carried 40 times for 245 yards and two touchdowns, and Herriman put up 449 total yards, per the Deseret News. The third and 1 stop near the goal line left Herriman kicking a field goal instead of scoring a touchdown. That was the margin, and Herriman will think about that one all winter.
Now the other side of the argument: the kick missed, so Skyridge got lucky, right? Sure, a little. But eight of Skyridge's 11 wins this season have come by one possession, per the Deseret News. That is not luck. That is a lifestyle.
Corner Canyon is next
Skyridge's only loss this season was the Aug. 13 opener at Mountain Ridge, 41-26. In the other semifinal Thursday, Corner Canyon beat Mountain Ridge 34-28, so the Falcons get the three-time defending champions for the title. Skyridge already beat Corner Canyon 37-27 earlier this season, and Corner Canyon will be looking to get that one back. Sequel season, anyone?
Skyridge spent two Novembers hearing "next year." Next year showed up on Thursday. It arrived with an 80-yard drive, a faked pitch and a kick that drifted the wrong way for the other guys.
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