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SALT LAKE CITY — Brighton senior Quincy Covington caught the kickoff on a bounce and was off. He quickly found a gap in the center of the field and then broke free as he cut to his right. Soon he was sprinting down the sideline as the Brighton crowd erupted.
Those cheers didn't stop for the rest of the game.
Covington's 86-yard touchdown return in the third quarter kickstarted a dominant second half as Brighton ran away from Skyline for a 41-23 win in KSL.com's Game of the Week.
"That was probably the biggest momentum swing of the second half," Brighton coach Casey Sutera said of Covington's return.
It'd be hard to argue with that thought.
Skyline had just gone on a long drive that ended in a field goal that cut Brighton's lead to 20-17. And with the way the Eagles had run the ball, the game looked like it was setting up for a close finish between the Region 6 rivals.
Then Covington made a house call. From there, it was all Brighton.
The Bengals scored 21 straight points in the second half to pull away, and the rout was on as Brighton improved to 5-1 on the season. Skyline didn't score again until there was just five seconds left in the contest — and by then the game was well decided.
Brighton has now won five straight games after a season-opening loss to Desert Hills and have looked better and better each week of the season.
"I think, as a group, we've all been more disciplined as far as penalties and being more focused and those types of things," Sutera said. "We've gotten a lot better at playing more clean football and not making as many mistakes."
It was the mistakes and discipline that plagued the Bengals a bit in the opening part of the game. Receiver Nash Matheson lost a fumble; and later, quarterback Jack Johnson got a bit too eager on a flea flicker call and got picked off by Skyline safety and BYU commit Miles Hall. Add those to some dropped passes and missed tackles and the Bengals were in a dog fight.
"We turned over the ball too much," Johnson said. "We were making all the right plays but we weren't executing."
Johnson, who is among the state leaders in passing, credited the defense for changing the game. Brighton's defense sacked Skyline quarterback Josh Calvert twice to end the first half, which forced the clock to run out on what had been a promising scoring chance for the Eagles. On the play before the two sacks, Calvert had thrown a fade into the end zone for Hall, which the future Cougar couldn't quite pull in.
That same defensive front stepped up again in the second half to sack Calvert on fourth down after Skyline had driven into Bengal territory with Brighton up 27-17.
"That was huge, right?" said Sutera, who is in his first year as coach. "They were moving the ball, they ran the football really well on us and we were struggling. And just to get them back behind the sticks when they had good field position, like, that was huge."
Senior running back Kace Gurr had three touchdown runs in the game to pace the Bengals' run-heavy attack on Friday. Johnson found Matheson for a 4-yard score in the fourth quarter, and Mason Haertel finished off the scoring for the Bengals with a late touchdown run.
Skyline senior running back Porter Brockman had a 77-yard touchdown run that will certainly make his person highlight reel. Brockman evaded darn near the entire Bengals defense as he cut in and out of defenders on his way to the end zone.
With the win, the Bengals remain on top of Region 6 with a 3-0 region record and a matchup with East, which is 2-0 in region play, that looms next Friday.
