4A high school football preview: Bonneville at Dixie

Bonneville (7-4) vs. Dixie (7-3)

4A state tournament quarterfinal

Friday, 2 p.m.

Parry's Power Guide: Bonneville by 3

All-time series: First Meeting

Coach vs. Coach: Dixie's Blaine Monkres leads Bonneville's Matt Williams, 1-0 (met in 2006 when Monkres was at Fremont)

Last meeting: First Meeting

Professional and college teams do it all the time. Even the small classification high schools in Utah are used to doing it, but for Bonneville, traveling six hours on a bus for a football game is new.

"We've never had to do that before, so we are going to try to just make it all about football," said Lakers coach Matt Williams of taking his team to St. George to face Dixie in the 4A quarterfinals. "We will go down Thursday night for the Friday afternoon kickoff. We want to take our time and practice somewhere on the way down. We are still working things out, but this is new for the kids and we want to make it a great experience for them, treat it as much like a college type game as possible and hopefully they will respond on the field."

The Lakers responded in their first round upset of Bountiful in overtime. In a game that had most expecting the Braves to advance, Bonneville rose to the occasion.

"I didn't really tell the kids anything different," said Williams. "I have kind of left that up to our senior captains, and just like they have been doing all season, they took over and got the guys to make plays."

When Williams first gathered the team to choose captains, he got a surprise. After the vote, he had three players that were voted in easily, but he then had three more players tied for his normal fourth captaincy seat. Rather than eliminating two, Williams decided for the first time in his career to have six captains.

"It wasn't what I was expecting, but I would have to say it has turned out to be one of the best things for us," he said. "Every one of those guys has stepped up and become a leader and a go-to guy for our team. They have been the ones getting it done on the field and off all season."

Devin Mickels, Connor Stephens, Jonathan Logue, Manaia Filiaga, Sage Stireman and Jake Conolly were chosen as the captains, and each has lived up to the billing. Stephens is among the state leaders in sacks and Conolly has over 80 tackles on the year.

"Those captains are the heart and soul of the team," added Williams. "We have been relying on them all year, and I don't see that changing for the next game. We will be doing what we have done."

One thing the Lakers have done all year is play great defense. They give up an average of only 16.5 points per game, but that number is much better when comparing only 4A competition. Williams expects his defense to be there again against Dixie, but hopes to get a big performance from his offense.