High school football: Last-minute scoring bomb lifts Bonneville over Mountain View

OREM — It took a 58-yard touchdown pass with 48 seconds remaining for Bonneville High to secure a 28-21 win in Friday's opening round of the 4A state football playoffs on the road at Mountain View.

The game was tied at 21-21 and, after struggling to connect on long pass plays for nearly the entire game, Bonneville quarterback Todd Aubrey found Devin Mickles streaking up the right hash mark to put the Lakers on top for good.

"We can throw the ball," Bonneville head coach Matt Williams said. "We put it up quite a bit, and we thought we would stick with it and let them make a mistake. We wanted to just keep going up top because they gave us some things we like and we ended up getting it late."

Things started out well for the Lakers when Mountain View fumbled on its first play from scrimmage and gave Bonneville the ball deep in Bruin territory. Mountain View's defense stayed tough, however, and forced a 38-yard field goal by Adam Farnsworth that put Bonneville on top 3-0 early. Farnsworth extended the Lakers' lead by hitting another field goal midway through the first quarter.

After two turnovers and two punts on its first four drives, Mountain View finally got things going when senior running back Anthony Heimuli broke a tackle at the line of scrimmage and busted a 70-yard touchdown run to put the Bruins on top 7-6 near the end of the first quarter.

Bonneville responded on the ensuing possession with a 79-yard drive that was capped by a 13-yard touchdown run by Austen Richards, who took the ball off-tackle on a reverse. The Lakers were successful on a two-point conversion attempt to put the game at a touchdown's length.

Not to be outdone, Mountain View showed its grit on an 80-yard scoring drive, where quarterback Dustin Thacker completed three long passes and found Flint Gardner open in the Laker secondary to tie the game at 14-14.

"The defense gave up a couple of big plays in the first half, and that is not typical of my defense," Williams said. "So we were a little disappointed with the first half, but Mountain View is a great team that is big, strong and well-coached."

Mountain View's only score in the second half was on a fumble recovery in the end zone after a muffed handoff in the Bonneville backfield. The Lakers were on their own 5-yard line when the fumble squirted into the end zone and Taylor Story fell on it to put Mountain View on top 21-14.