From Deseret News archives:
High school football: Cowboys advance by surviving 3-way play-in
On Tuesday night, Grantsville ruled the circus, defeating Ben Lomond 13-12 in the first two quarters of a Region 11 three-team play-in game at Davis High. The Cowboys then beat Bear River 17-14 in the final two quarters to earn 3A's final playoff berth. Grantsville earned the right to play at Hurricane in the first round on Saturday at 3 p.m.
The Cowboys earned both victories in dramatic fashion. Against Ben Lomond, Forrest Stephenson, following a reverse, threw a 48-yard touchdown pass to Tyson Hutchins with 2:53 remaining. In the playoff-berth clinching win over Bear River, Alex Childs scored on a 3-yard run with 45 seconds remaining.
"Heart," is what Grantsville coach Tony Cloward said his team showed on Tuesday. "We're a good football team. We may not be the most athletic team in our classification, but you can't measure heart and that's what they showed tonight."
Grantsville struggled on offense against Bear River until midway through the fourth quarter. The Cowboys got rolling after Kort Fonger blocked a punt and Austin Vickers recovered it at Bear River's 6. Two plays later, Childs scored the first of two touchdowns against the Bears to give the Cowboys a 10-7 lead.
Bear River answered to go up 14-10 with 2:27 left. But Grantsville put together a quick and impressive drive to win. Quarterback Gareth Anderson completed 4-of-5 passes for 41 yards during the game-clinching drive with two of the throws going to Cody Colson. Childs then scored the game-winner.
"I knew all week these kids didn't want to finish their season yet," Cloward said. "I knew they wanted to play more."
The Cowboys believe they had an advantage by playing in the first half on Tuesday's game. Getting past the Scots certainly gave them a momentum boost going into the second half of the game. They traded their red jerseys for white ones at halftime, and opened the third quarter with a nine-play scoring drive and field goal by Stephenson.
"We were confident because we knew we should have beat both those teams in the beginning," Childs said. "We took them one at a time. After we won that first game, we were so pumped. There was no doubt that we would win the second half."
Grantsville avenged a 31-7 loss in its homecoming game to Bear River during the regular season.
E-mail: aaragon@desnews.com
