High school football: Juan Diego defense stifles Judge Memorial

SOUTH SALT LAKE — Looking at a scoreboard alone can sometimes be deceiving.

On the surface of Juan Diego's 34-12 victory over Judge Memorial at Granite High on Friday night, it looked like a familiar situation in which the Soaring Eagle overwhelmed yet another opponent with its powerful option offense.

The reality is that this was a night which completely belonged to Juan Diego's defense. The Soaring Eagle set a dominant tone by forcing the Bulldogs to fumble on the second play of their opening drive. From there, they made enough stops for the offense start to four of its first five drives deep in Judge territory – with two of those possessions beginning inside the red zone.

By game's end, Juan Diego had limited Judge to 144 yards of total offense — with only 43 coming in the first three quarters — and had sacked junior quarterback Daniel Shiramizu seven times.

"This is a dominant defense," Soaring Eagle running back Lars Gunderson said. "We need to pick it up with our offense. We got a lot of work to do if we want to return to what we did last year."

Working with mostly short fields contributed to Juan Diego's scant total of 245 yards offense.

The Soaring Eagle went up 7-0 in the first quarter after quarterback Cody Stevenson ran it in from nine yards out to cap a seven-play, 35-yard drive. This came on the heels of an opening drive which started at the Bulldog 12 but came away empty-handed when Jaron Bentrude missed a 26-yard field goal.

A couple of special teams plays blew the game wide open in the second quarter.

Paul Clark faked a punt from his own end zone and could not make it back to the line of scrimmage, giving the Soaring Eagle the ball at Judge's 10-yard line. Gunderson ran it on consecutive plays to make it 14-0.

Then, after forcing a Bulldog punt, Gunderson scooped up the ball at the 50-yard line as three Judge players gathered around it and streaked down the sideline for his second touchdown and a 21-0 Juan Diego lead with 4:37 left in the half.

Stevenson produced the Soaring Eagle's final touchdown — connecting with Keegan Andersen on a 9-yard pass with 1:01 remaining before halftime — and Bentrude nailed a 50-yard field goal to make it 31-0 by the end of the third quarter.