OREM — In the semifinals a year ago, Morgan turned the ball over five times in a gut-wrenching loss to North Sanpete.
A year later against the same opponent and in the same round of the playoffs, incredibly Morgan again turned the ball over five times. Fortunately for Morgan’s offense, its defense was just as good in Saturday’s 3A semifinals at Mountain View High School.
Morgan’s defense recorded five turnovers of its own, scoring on a pick six and a safety, as the Trojans survived 10-7 in a sloppy, defensive battle against North Sanpete to advance to next week’s state championship.
“Our defense has been doing it all year long, they’re amazing. Make my heart about explode sometimes, but they’ve come up big all year. It’s a good team effort,” said Morgan coach Kovi Christiansen.
Morgan’s offense moved the ball fine during large stretches of the game, but a couple of costly red zone turnovers — including a fumble at the 3-yard line — left numerous points on the field.
The defense bailed them out repeatedly, though.
- Watch replay: Morgan 10, North Sanpete 7
The biggest of the five defensive turnovers for Morgan came with 6:06 remaining in the third quarter on a third-down roll by North Sanpete’s quarterback. He tried to slip a pass into a narrow window as he was hit, but the ball went straight to Morgan linebacker Dexter Gilson, who returned it 20 yards for the touchdown and the 10-7 lead.
“He’s an emotional player, he’s come up big a number of times,” said Christiansen.
Morgan’s defense came up with two more interceptions in the fourth quarter, including the game-clincher by Ryder Lish on a fourth and 15 with less than two minutes remaining.
Christiansen said the defensive dominance from his team makes it a lot easier to deal with the frustration of the offense squandering numerous opportunities.
“When you’ve got a defense like ours, you’re never out of a ball game, that’s why it takes two sides of the ball to win,” said Christiansen.
With the win, Morgan advances to next Friday’s 3A state championship at Dixie State against the Juab/Grantsville winner at 5 p.m.
It will need a more consistent effort from the offense to claim its first state title in 22 years, but Christiansen isn’t too concerned.
“Offense will get things figured out … they’ve done well all year,” said Christiansen about his offense, which was averaging 34.4 ppg entering the semifinals.
Morgan finished the game with 179 yards of total offense, while North Sanpete finished with 200 yards.
A big chunk of North Sanpete’s yardage came on its only scoring drive of the game in the first quarter. Using a heavy dose of Payton Clawson on the ground, North Sanpete marched 75 yards in 14 plays with Clawson capping the drive on a 1-yard plunge with two seconds left in the quarter for the 7-0 lead.
Christiansen said his team made an adjustment to North Sanpete’s heavy running sets after that drive and the Hawks offense did virtually nothing over the next quarter and a half with 16 combined yards on their next six offensive series.
Despite those struggles, it still led 7-2 at the half as Morgan’s only points came on safety after an intentional ground penalty in the end zone with 2:38 left in the half.
After Morgan went ahead 10-7 on its second defensive score of the game, North Sanpete’s offense went back to the ground and started to grind out first downs.
It moved the ball inside Morgan’s 30 on back-to-back drives, but they both stalled respectively on an interception and downs.
Morgan will try to replicate that defensive performance in next week’s championship in pursuit of its first title since 1997.
from Deseret News https://ift.tt/36TrHT0
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario