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ST. GEORGE — The Friday night matchup between the Flyers of Dixie and the Grizzlies of Logan turned out to be a total one-sided affair.
The 55-13 result gave Dixie their first playoff win since 2021 and advanced them to the second round of the 4A postseason tournament. Dixie will take on Park City on Oct. 27.
The Flyers started the scoring almost immediately.
Just minutes into the game, Wyatt Truman connected with David Bartschi for the first touchdown of the night. The Flyers scored once more in the first quarter, this time with Truman throwing to junior Ran Sawyer for the touchdown.
Logan managed to keep it close, though, due to a Kedin Avila rushing touchdown in the last two minutes of the quarter.
The second quarter was where Dixie took off. Truman found the end zone on foot to light the spark, and Louie Bennett followed suit less than two minutes later.
An interception from Grizzlies quarterback Keaton Pond to Seth Morby kept the ball out of Logan's hands. Minutes later, Pond missed his receiver again and allowed a Junior Coughlin pick-six score. With eight seconds left on the game clock, Truman connected with Bartschi again for a touchdown to round out the half with a 42-7 lead.
The Logan defense stepped up and allowed just one score in each of the following quarters. Yet, another interception from Pond, again into the arms of Coughlin, put Dixie in scoring position.
"As long as everyone does their job, I can keep doing my job," said Coughlin, who couldn't keep the Dixie faithful off their feet all night. "A huge win is big for our momentum. As long as we can carry how we played tonight and practice well next week, I think we can get it done in the next game."
The sole score in the third quarter came courtesy of Sylas Russell's third rushing touchdown of 2023.
As things came to a close in the fourth quarter, both teams found themselves in the end zone once more. Bennett earned his second rushing touchdown of the night for the Flyers, while Pond's only passing touchdown of the game allowed the Grizzlies to get one last punch in.
If the Flyers showed a weakness in the game, it presented itself through penalties. It took two hands to count the number of encroachment penalties that were called on the defense, in addition to face masks, pass interferences, false starts and even an illegal block in the back.
"We were down on penalties tonight more than we have been in the past," head coach Blaine Monkres said. "We'll have to be better and play one of our best games in order to compete next week."
Dixie and Park City faced off once in the regular season, with Park City coming out on top 24-21. The 13th-seeded Flyers will now look to upset the fourth-seeded Miners.
