High school football: 'Stangs get Region 5 title victory

SMITHFIELD — The Mountain Crest Mustangs won the Region 5 championship outright with their 38-17 win over the Sky View Bobcats.

The game looked as it was going to be a high scoring shoot out as Sky View came out firing and scored on its opening drive. On the ninth play of the three-minute opening drive Kyler Carlsen ran it in from 33-yards out to put Sky View up.

Mountain Crest answered just as fast, scoring nine plays later. Alex Kuresa found Alex Knowles wide open on a 34-yard touchdown pass.

Sky View blocked the PAT.

Kuresa finished the night with 276 yards passing and rushed for another 76, 50 of those coming from a broken punt play that Kuresa turned into a 50-yard gain. Knowles was solid with three touchdowns, rushing for 32 yards and also had 151 receiving yards.

"My line was stepping up for me big," said Kuresa. "I made a couple bad reads so I wanted to come back and step up for them and make a couple good plays to give us the momentum back."

Sky View scored its final points of the first half on a 20-yard field goal by Brock Warren.

The Mustangs reclaimed the lead with 32-yard pass from Kuresa to Knowles.

Sky View had a chance to cut the lead to one, but opted to go for it on fourth and 10 from the Mountain Crest 23. The Mustangs held them and took over the ball on downs. The Bobcats had another chance to cut the lead to one but Warren's 29-yard field goal attempt sailed wide right.

Mountain Crest took over and on the first play scored on a 80-yard pass from Kuresa to Knowles. Kuresa ran in the two-point conversion to give the Mustangs a commanding 22-10 lead.

Sky View started the second half strong by forcing the Mustangs into fumbling the ball on the four yard line. However, on the next play Mountain Crest's Mallin Brough intercepted Carlsen's pass and ran it in for a touchdown, putting the Mustangs up 28-10.

Knowles caught yet another Touchdown as he caught a six-yard pass from Kuresa to seal the deal and put the Mustangs up 35-10 at the end of the third.