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AMERICAN FORK — What started out as a defensive battle on both sides turned into a dominant win for No. 5 Farmington as they knocked off home team No. 4 American Fork 19-3.
In the first half, it looked to be anybody's game.
Farmington received the opening kickoff and chewed up almost 10 minutes of clock on their first drive. The Phoenix didn't do anything out of the ordinary; they simply marched their way down the field on the back of their 5-foot-7, 150-pound sophomore running back Travis Hoopes and a healthy mixture of short passes.
The American Fork defense held firm, though, and the Phoenix failed to come away with points after a 24-yard field goal attempt missed wide right. Though it seemed like a missed opportunity, Farmington head coach Daniel Coats said the drive set the tone for his team going forward.
"Definitely momentum and just the confidence that we can do this," the former BYU and NFL tight end Coats said. "When we match up with a lot of teams, we're smaller. And, you know, a lot of times I tell the guys it's not about always being the biggest; it's about doing your technique and doing things the right way and we'll be fine."
The Cavemen, who came into the game averaging 22.0 points per game, stalled after a modest drive of their own. As the home team set to punt the ball away, they didn't account for Farmington linebacker Jed Judkins, who came in untouched and blocked the punt. It was, by Judkins' count, his fifth blocked punt of the season.
The play set the Phoenix up on the American Fork's 40-yard line, and Farmington's offense got back to chewing up clock and steadily moving the ball down field. The drive culminated in a 1-yard touchdown run by Hoopes, but the ensuing PAT was blocked.
Farmington's single touchdown was the only score of the first half, but Coats said he knew what his team was capable of and kept the message to his players simple.
"Just finishing, starting clean, because normally we have a bunch of penalties or a bunch of just mental errors, and we still had a bunch," Coats said. "But just starting clean and fast and just finishing plays — finishing plays, finishing the game and just trusting each other, because it really wasn't, 'Hey, let's do something brand new or let's try something off the wall.' It's just, 'Fellas, clean up the mistakes and we'll be all right.'"
American Fork hoped for a big turnaround in the second half when they received the ball first, but it didn't go well. Their opening drive stalled and the Cavemen were forced to punt.
Farmington threw the ball a bit more in the second half and ended the drive on a 12-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Easton Wight to Mitch Nielsen. The team went for a 2-point conversion but failed to convert.
Following a three-and-out series from the American Fork offense, the Phoenix went up three scores on the ensuing drive with a 39-yard drive that was capped off on a 1-yard score from Hoopes to take a 19-0 lead.
If the Cavemen thought the Phoenix defense had been good up to that point in the game, things were about to get a lot harder in the fourth quarter.
American Fork needed to score quickly, so the offense opened up the passing game. On the first play of the fourth quarter, quarterback Lincoln Jackson threw a pass that got intercepted by Farmington linebacker Luke Hansen. Although the Phoenix didn't score, their drive ended on American Fork's 5-yard line.
But the next series didn't go well for the Cavemen, either, and was a near mirror image of the previous drive as Jackson's pass was picked off by Farmington's Dayton Runyan. And while the visitors failed to score again, back-to-back interceptions demoralized American Fork and made any ideas of a comeback that much more difficult.
Farmington held firm for the remainder of the game and only allowed a late field goal to American Fork. The Phoenix move on to the semifinals round for the first time in school history. But Farmington gets its biggest challenge of the season when they take on No. 1 Corner Canyon at Rice-Eccles Stadium next week.
"Just excited, excited for these guys," Coats said. "I tell them all the time I had my time. ... I've done the state championships, things like that, and I'm just excited for them to have their time. So I remind them constantly this isn't a me thing. I wish I could be out there playing, but it's not. It's them doing the hard work, putting the time in and receiving the effort."
