High school football: Last-minute score helps Bulldogs beat Bears

It was a battle to the very end.

On senior night, Judge Memorial High School scored a touchdown with under a minute to play to get a 28-21 win over the Bear River Bears to secure their third-place finish in Region 11.

"This win is huge," said Judge quarterback Danieal Shiramizu. "It works out for us in playoff seeding, and it's huge to get us up and going for the playoffs."

With a 1:34 left to play Bear River completed a 45-yard drive with a 10-yard touchdown pass and completed the two-point conversion to tie the score at 21-21.

Judge Memorial had no thoughts of overtime, however, as it marched down the field, completing seven plays for 72 yards in just over a minute, sealing the 28-21 victory.

"That's a good team out there," said Shiramizu, who rushed for 98 yards on the game. "To play the way we did, I mean that wasn't our best football, and to still come out and win like that and command a drive at the end of the game gives us a lot of momentum going forward."

From the beginning of the game, it was a back-and-forth battle between the two teams, with the score being tied 7-7 at halftime.

After the break, the offense from both teams exploded. The Bulldogs forced a fumble on the first play of the second half and Shiramizu ran the final 18 yards to the end zone on the very next play. Bear River answered less than six minutes later, as Aaron Spencer carried the ball five yards for the Bears touchdown.

On the next series, Judge found themselves deep in their own territory after penalties put them at fourth and long. Instead of punting, however, Paul Clark ran the ball 62 yards for the Judge Memorial touchdown.

"It was a bad snap, so I looked to my left and tried to kick it and saw that wasn't going to work, so I went back to my right, faked the kick and just took off," Clark said. "I was just thinking 'don't get tackled' because I would've had to run in practice for that."

Judge looked to be in control of the game, forcing a fumble and a punt, until late in the fourth quarter when Bear River scored the tying touchdown.

"You know it was perseverance, they played hard," said Judge head coach James Cordova of his team. "They didn't do everything right, but they played hard. If you play hard and give yourselves opportunities, you're going to find ways to win and we won out."

Bear River's offense kept it in the game until the very end, as quarterback James Taylor threw for over 100 yards, including two touchdowns, and Payton Wells rushed for 106 yards.

"Judge is a good team. You've got to credit them that, but I thought we had some opportunities to play and play well at the end," said Bear River defensive line coach Lee Jensen. "We had but a couple of mental mistakes got us out of the game here late but you know just a tough game."

Both teams will participate in state 3A playoffs games next Friday. Judge will face the Region 12 No. 2 seed Delta, while Bear River will get Manti, the No. 1 seed from Region 12. Both games will be away, as Judge and Bear River finished third and fourth, respectively.