High school football: South Summit wins turnover battle, pounds Delta

KAMAS – Fresh off overwhelming multiple opponents with its high-scoring offense, South Summit still saw one glaring omission in its football resume. The Wildcats were losing the turnover battle with opponents – totaling minus 6 in the turnover margin despite winning all of their games.

Against Delta, South Summit corrected that problem in resounding fashion.

The Wildcat defense forced five second-quarter fumbles to fuel a 27-7 victory over the Rabbits on Friday night.

"Our defense is always strong and that's something we're going to count on all year," senior quarterback Trevor Lewis said. "If we put a field goal on the board, our defense will hold (our opponents) to zero if they need to."

Things quickly unraveled for Delta starting on the tail end of what had nearly been a scoring drive to open the second quarter. The Rabbits marched 72 yards in six plays to the South Summit 11-yard line. Then Joey Dutson found Taylor Shamo on an 11-yard bootleg pass, a play which seemingly gave Delta a 6-0 lead. But an ineligible receiver downfield wiped out the play.

On the next snap, senior tailback Derek Peterson fumbled at the end of a run and the Wildcats pounced on the ball at the 7-yard line.

Delta forced a punt, only to fumble away the punt return. South Summit punted again a few plays later. This time, the Rabbits fumbled after just two plays. The Wildcats gave the ball back just two plays later when they also fumbled at the Delta 20.

Luck went from bad to worse for Delta at that point. The Rabbits fumbled the ball on the first play of each of their next two drives. South Summit recovered the first one at the Delta 14 and scored two plays later on an 8-yard run by Niko Klus to go up 7-0. The Wildcats wrapped up the second fumble at the Rabbit 8 and need just three plays to take a 14-0 lead on a 7-yard pass from Lewis to tight end Danny Jackson.

Delta finally put a stop to its string of fumbles on its next drive. But it wasn't enough to curtail South Summit's momentum. The Wildcats went up 21-0 on Lewis' second touchdown pass – a 27-yard strike to Judd Rydalch – with 27.4 seconds left before halftime.

South Summit coach Jerry Parker believes the effort he saw from his defense will help the team be on more solid footing coming into region play.

"We gained some ground mentally here," Parker said.