We said on Thursday that if Skyridge won this game, you would hear about it until Thanksgiving. Consider this the first installment.
Skyridge 37, Corner Canyon 27. The Falcons intercepted the three-time defending 6A champions five times, stopped them on fourth down three times, and did it a year after losing to them 49-14 in Draper.
A first quarter nobody in Draper will rewatch
Corner Canyon's defense forced a stop on the opening drive. That was the last thing that went according to script for a while.
On the Chargers' first possession, Jaxon Pehrson was hit as he threw, the ball floated, and linebacker Jackson Horsley took it back for a touchdown. One drive later, with Corner Canyon moving into Skyridge territory, defensive back Ethan Schriever jumped a throw and went the other way too. Two possessions, two pick sixes, 14-0.
Then the Skyridge sideline got greedy in the best possible way. Onside kick. Recovered. The drive that followed ended on third and goal, when Beckham Bennett got wrapped up by two Chargers, stayed upright in a crouch that should not have held, and kept going for the score. 21-0, and the first quarter was not over.
That onside call was the gutsiest decision anybody made all night. It paid off right away.
Bennett added a short swing pass touchdown in the second quarter to make it 27-0. Jackson Carruth answered before the half, finishing a screen by running straight through a Skyridge defensive back at the goal line. 27-7 at the break.
The comeback that kept hitting a wall
Corner Canyon won the second half. It never won the big snap.
Pehrson found Diesel Dart for a third-quarter touchdown to cut it to 27-14, and Skyridge answered with a field goal late in the quarter. Then came the fourth downs. Three times the Chargers passed on a kick and went for it, at least twice inside field goal range, including a fourth and 1 near the Skyridge 19. Three times the Skyridge defense won.
Six points left on the table, on the road, against a team that was already up two scores. Casey Sutera coached like a man trying to impose his will on the game. Against this defense, that option was not on the menu.
Corner Canyon turned to junior Daren Borg at quarterback after Pehrson's fourth interception, and Eli Mortensen picked off Borg with a little over six minutes left. Senior safety Burnham Sudweeks gave the Chargers a pulse, jumping a Skyridge screen inside the Corner Canyon 10 and taking it the length of the field to make it 30-20 with about two minutes to go.
The two-point try fell incomplete. The onside kick failed. Bennett ended it from about 40 yards out, and Borg's 6-yard touchdown pass to Dart with 55 seconds left only set the final margin.
What we learned
This is not the Corner Canyon of old. It is still a good Utah football team, with talent all over a young roster and plenty of season left. But five interceptions and three failed fourth downs is not how a top national program plays, and Friday was not the first multi-interception night for this group.
Before anybody writes the obituary: Helaman Casuga threw four interceptions at Lone Peak last September, and Corner Canyon won the state title two months later. One bad night is not a season. That team had one of them. This one has had more than one.
Skyridge is a different story. We watched Mountain Ridge run the ball on the Falcons in the second half of their opener and wondered whether Friday would go the same way once the momentum turned. It did not. Every critical stop, the defense made.
Stack that on a 21-14 win over Orem, the best of the bunch until Friday, and a 31-24 win over the Hun School of New Jersey, and Skyridge looks like the second best team in Utah behind Mountain Ridge, and a team that would love a second crack at the Sentinels in November.
Hats off to the Falcons. Their secondary spent Friday playing like it knew where the ball was going before the quarterback did.
