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AMERICAN FORK — The Hillcrest Huskies traveled to American Fork Saturday afternoon for the first round of the 5A state playoffs. Hillcrest couldn't keep up with American Fork's high-powered offense as the American Fork Cavemen won 42-13. American Fork is the No. 1 seed coming out of Region 4, while Hillcrest is the fourth seed from Region 2.
The first quarter, neither team put any points on the board. However, that soon changed as American Fork scored 21 points in the second quarter. Zach Katoa ran 70 yards for a touchdown to give the Cavemen their first points of the game. American Fork quarterback Tanner Smith then completed a 44-yard pass to Coleson Worley. The third touchdown of the quarter came from Smith connecting with Ben Cummings to make the score 21-0 heading into halftime.
Early in the third quarter, Hillcrest scored on a 44-yard pass from Tanner Thompson to Bryce Vombaur to help lessen its deficit, but American Fork went on to score three additional touchdowns in the third, including another Katoa touchdown. Jake Laycock also recovered a Hillcrest fumble and ran it back 75 yards for a touchdown. For the last touchdown of the third quarter, Smith connected again with Cummings.
The score at the start of the final quarter was 42-7. Hillcrest scored one more touchdown on a pass from Thompson to Andrew Olson. The two-point conversion failed, making the final score 42-13 for American Fork.
With the win, American Fork will face Jordan next week. American Fork head coach Aaron Behm realizes that Jordan is a more advanced team and that things need to change for next week. "We had too many penalties in the first half. A couple of holds really cost us on our opening drive. We want to start the game with scoring and we went down with I think two or three holding penalties on the opening drive and Jordan is too good of a team to make those mistakes."
Although Behm sees his team has room for improvement, he is not complaining about American Fork's overall performance. "We are very happy. We played as a team. We played with great effort, and those are the things that we ultimately measure. And to come out 41-13 against a playoff team, we are happy, we are excited."
