2A high school football preview: The cream rises to the top

Realistically, San Juan coach Monty Lee isn't surprised by the four teams that have reached the 2A football state tournament semifinals this weekend.

"When you analyze the personnel teams have coming back, you can always get a good indication of teams that ought to be there," said Lee. "The cream usually rises to the top."

Sure enough, when the coaches voted in the Deseret News preseason poll back in August, San Juan and South Summit were overwhelmingly voted No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, and those are the same rankings they take into the semifinals at Southern Utah University this Saturday.

South Summit (9-1) faces Grand (7-4) at 11 a.m., which will be followed at 2 p.m. by San Juan (9-1) vs. South Sevier (9-1).

"We're ready to play them. You get to the semis, you're going to face a good team regardless. We're glad to be there and ready to play," said South Sevier coach Travis McAllister.

The Rams are enjoying one of their best seasons in school history, but they'll face their stiffest challenge of the season against a San Juan team that ranked second in 2A in scoring offense and defense this season.

"They're really good defensively; we're going to face probably the best defense we've faced all year. They're strong defensively, and offensively they have the (Jace) Holiday kid who's a really good runner," said McAllister.

South Sevier counters with a balanced offensive attack that includes standout receiver Dillon Bishoff and a very senior-laden squad. The Rams were undefeated before losing to Enterprise in the last week of the regular season, and ever since they've been having some of their best practices of the season.

"I'm sure they'll bring everything they can to the table, and that's what the playoffs are all about," said Lee.

The first semifinal pits South Summit against Grand in a rematch of a 35-14 victory for the Wildcats back on Sept. 18. South Summit only led that game 14-7 early in the fourth quarter but pulled away late by capitalizing on some costly Grand mistakes.

South Summit is coming off an extremely impressive 45-6 quarterfinal victory over a quality Millard team, a result coach Jerry Parker said "was unbelievable. I don't know if we can ever play like that again."

It might not need to if it simply minimizes the turnovers it had against Grand earlier this season.

"The first time we played them, we had quite a few turnovers, and I think it comes down again to if we can control the ball," said Parker. "Against Millard, we didn't have a turnover and we didn't punt."

e-mail: jedward@desnews.com