High school football: Snow Canyon breaks through, beats Pine View

ST. GEORGE — After a season full of close losses, the Snow Canyon Warriors finally experienced a nailbiter from the winner's perspective.

"It feels great," Warriors' wide receiver Dillon Appel said, after his team surprised the Pine View Panthers 14-7 Thursday night. "The defense played awesome and we made just enough plays on offense to get the win. Against a crosstown rival, it couldn't be any sweeter."

The Warriors have suffered through a one-point loss, a two-point loss and a pair of seven-point losses during their 3-6 season. But head coach Jay Graft was not about to look back with regret.

"Not a lot of teams get to end the season with a win," he said. "It's been a year of learning and growing. But I really have to take my hat off to these kids. They didn't give up."

Snow Canyon also got a lot of help from Pine View, which seemed to be its own worst enemy. The Panthers had two touchdowns called back due to penalties and also fumbled on the one-yard line.

Pine View also had a pair of interceptions inside the Snow Canyon 20-yard line. In five trips into the red zone, the Panthers came away with zero points. The only Pine View score came on a 90-yard kickoff return in the second quarter.

"I'm so proud of the defense," Graft said. "We're not going to the playoffs and it would have been easy for these kids to give up, but they played their butts off tonight."

Pine View blew a couple of scoring chances in the first quarter on penalties and a bad snap and it was the Warriors that finally broke the scoreless tie on a fourth down fade pass in the corner of the end zone from Austin Larsen to Tyler Miller.

That made it 7-0 with 11:01 to go in the first half. Murdock tied the game on the ensuing kickoff using great speed and a killer cutback at midfield to go the distance.

The game stayed tied until early in the fourth quarter, when fullback Jake Jorgensen busted a couple of tackles and high-stepped 13 yards into the end zone. Jorgensen's jaunt came with 11:09 left in the game and capped a 9-play, 90-yard drive.

Pine View had two chances late in the game to tie the score. The first one ended on a sack that turned the ball over on downs. After Murdock interception, Pine View again got the ball inside the 10-yard line, but a holding penalty set them back and an incompletion on fourth down gave the Warriors the ball back with 3:36 to play.

Snow Canyon then was able to rush for a pair of first downs and run out the clock.

The Panthers, 5-3, were just 2-for-14 on third downs and 0-for-8 on fourth downs in the game. Pine View has still clinched a playoff spot and can come away as the number one seed from Region 9 in the 4A playoffs with a win next week at home against Dixie.