5A high school football: Miners beat 'Diggers in shootout

SOUTH JORDAN — What started out as a joke almost turned into a disaster for the Bingham Miners.

When the Miners took a two-touchdown lead against Jordan in the first quarter of their first-round 5A playoff game, some students on the sideline said the game was over. When they went up three touchdowns, a couple of coaches made a bet on whether they would finish the first half with any timeouts remaining.

Bingham had to get serious in the second half — thanks to a couple of recovered onside kicks by the Beetdiggers and Jordan's passing game catching fire — but it was still able to hold on for a 62-42 win over the Beetdiggers. The Miners advance to play Syracuse in the 5A quarterfinals on Friday.

"Longest game I ever played in," said Bingham running back Harvey Langi. "It was exciting all the way to the very end of it. I can't wait until next week."

The game was a laugher for the first 2½ quarters. Bingham's running game dominated, and the Miners held Jordan quarterback Alex Hart and his plethora of weapons in check. When Langi scored on a 33-yard run to put Bingham up 41-7, it looked like the game clock would run continuously because of the state's 35-point mercy rule and the Miners could start thinking about next week.

Of all things to change the momentum, Jordan did it by blocking the extra point to keep the clock from running. Hart directed a quick scoring drive, and then the Beetdiggers recovered the ensuing onside kick. Hart scored on a 1-yard run, and Jordan recovered the ensuing kickoff when Bingham couldn't recover a squib kick.

Hart scored again from 1 yard out, and in less than five minutes Bingham's lead had trimmed to 41-28.

"They had a few minutes in the game where with the onside kicks, things got kind of crazy," said Bingham coach Dave Peck. "It looked like we had them buried. The blocked extra point was big because we would have had a running clock. I guarantee there wouldn't have been that many points if we would have had a running clock."

The Miners didn't do anything special to retake momentum. They just did what worked for them earlier in the game, and ran the ball down Jordan's throats. Bingham scored on three straight possessions to keep the Beetdiggers from getting any closer than 13 points. The Miners rushed for 352 yards on 51 carries.

Langi led the way with 159 yards on 21 carries, and scored four touchdowns. Richie Vakapuna provided a nice change of pace in Bingham's backfield, gaining 107 yards on 12 carries. He had two touchdown runs.