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DRAPER — Corner Canyon head football coach Eric Kjar had been close before.
When Kjar was at Jordan High, his Beetdigger teams put a couple scares into national power St. John Bosco. Then there was the Chargers' tight game against famed Bishop Gorman last season.
On Thursday, though, Corner Canyon didn't just get close — they got the win.
The Chargers came back from a two-touchdown halftime deficit to beat IMG Academy 35-34 Thursday in Draper. IMG came into the game ranked as the third-best team in the nation by MaxPreps.
"We just kept telling our kids, believe in yourselves," Kjar said.
It wouldn't have been too big of a surprise if belief was in short supply entering halftime, though.
IMG's Adonis Moise caught an 18-yard touchdown with 22 seconds left in the half to give the visitors a 28-14 lead at the break. That put an exclamation point to a strong — if not dominant — offensive half for the Florida powerhouse.
The Chargers hadn't had an answer for IMG's speed on the outside, and even their own high-scoring offense struggled.
"We, obviously, had some mistakes coming into the half that we weren't proud of," junior quarterback Helaman Casuga said. "We needed to know that we got two more quarters; it's gonna be a long game."
And now it'll be a long flight back to Florida for the Ascenders.
Casuga led three consecutive touchdown drives in the second half to help the Chargers pull off the upset.
With 2:25 left in the third quarter, Casuga scored on a 1-yard touchdown run to inch the Chargers to within a score, 28-21. The next drive, five-star receiver Jerome Myles pulled in a one-handed 26-yard pass down the sideline to tie the game up at 28-28.
"Helaman's just starting to figure everything out schematically, like where to look for areas to throw into, reading the coverage," Kjar said. "He showed great poise. He's a great playmaker. He did a great job today."
Casuga wasn't done yet.
After Corner Canyon recovered a fumble near midfield late in the game, Casuga found Myles again for a 44-yard touchdown to put the Chargers up 35-28 with under six minutes remaining.
"You just saw their confidence grow and grow as the game went on, and they kind of got in a groove," Kjar said.
Myles finished with three touchdowns and Casuga threw for four scores and rushed for another against what is expected to be one of the nation's top defenses.
"We work after practice almost every day, just trying to make sure we have our timing down," Casuga said. "I came up short on his post, but luckily, the DB fell and so kudos to Jerome; he's a great receiver."
That isn't news; there's a reason Georgia, Ohio State, USC, Texas A&M and Utah, among many others, all want Myles to be playing for them next season. What was a little surprising, though, was how great the Chargers' defense was in the second half.
Corner Canyon forced turnovers and didn't allow a score until late in the fourth quarter. But IMG's 8-yard touchdown run with just over two minutes left only set up the biggest stop of the night.
IMG kept its offense on the field after the score, hoping to take a late lead; Brock White had other ideas. The senior defensive back stopped IMG's outside run well before the goal line, all but clinching the 1-point victory (until Corner Canyon wore out the game clock).
"That was huge by our defense. I was a little worried about the edge run, but we brought an edge pressure, which was a great call by our defensive coordinator," Kjar said. "We just played man and came up and made a big stop."
And clinched a big win.
