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Show ' PARK RECORD . SECTION i i Thursday, November 1 2, 1 987 Page B 1 Miners come up one point short Two lapses cost Park City berth in finals '. ..V v., .t .... ""1 i. i 1 A 1 rt n i (v-' i : if! Reach for a falling football. Brett 41 1 f t,. 1-- i'iiIH s The two photos above TTy f, . v , (Top) The second Miner extra point attempt is about to be blocked. (Above) Brett Peretti narrowly misses breaking up Eagle pass, which netted the birds 53 yards. 1- .....h- f Is this some kind of anti-gravity . . . mm. 1 5 ilL- Ti . . f -XZTv - '.v l' & Benson does just that. . " ,."i 1 ' S .. - - ,v ...t IQ ' ' LI i- illustrate two critical plays. 7 ) JS stunt, or are there fire ants on v -f-i I 5 r hi 1 - . H. . i" .."i.WM. ., Hi 1 " II' lillllHlllI - - iv ' - v.- - :fy tfSHS X.UB fs . tniL - the ground? 1 nm'"i WIHHIWi Will I 'lli"PIl'l !!,, I 'III. p'mll-UIIU.I.ll)!l n 1 a by RANDY HANSKAT Record staff writer It didn't seem to fit in the scheme of the day. The picture was a brilliant one bright blasts of sun peppered with slate grey clouds. The stands were full of excited fans, all enjoying the warm temperatures. The game was a good one, with the lead changing hands between the two battling squads. The problem wasn't that one team had to lose. One team always has to lose. Besides, that's the oldest cliche in the book. What didn't fit into the otherwise perfect day was that one team lost the game they weren't necessarily beaten by the other team. What didn't fit was the imperfection imperfec-tion of two lapses which cost Park City the game against Millard, and along with it, a berth in the state 2A final game. It was that scenario which made Friday's 16-15 loss to Millard at Payson difficult for the Park City faithful to swallow. Actually, it was almost funny the way the game ended. Park City kicked kick-ed the go-ahead field goal, a feat which surprised many, seing as the Miners had missed their two previous extra point attempts. One was simply wide to the right, but the second was blocked due to a missed assignment the first lapse. Still, those points didn't loom very large when Beau Brinkerhoff's 34-yard field goal split the uprights. It was party time for the Miners, who obviously thought their 15-13 lead safe. Ah, but there was still 2:46 remaining re-maining in the game. Too much time for a premature party. The defense forgot that fact and suffered a lapse of concentration. After all, the game was in the bag, right? Wrong, that lapse allowed the Eagles to march the ball down to the Park City eight yard line in less than two minutes, all with no timeouts. It was quite a change from the way Park City had stymied the Millard offense all day. Maybe drunk from a bit too much celebrating? Park City Coach Bob Burns talked of the final turn of events at Payson. "We celebrated during the first play, blew an assignment, and suddenly sud-denly Millard thought they could win it," he said. With that confidence, it was the Miners who were on their heels, backing up to their goal line. Burns pointed out maybe 13 or 14 mental errors which hurt badly, two of which were fatal. Both were missed miss-ed assignments, which in the end cost the Miners four points, and the game. As you can always do, it is easy to look at the what ifs from the semifinal semi-final game at Payson. The Eagles' first touchdown was set up by a long pass which Miner cornerback Brett Peretti tipped a bit, just not enough. His position was so good that had he not left his feet a little early it may have been a Park City interception, rather than a big Eagle gain. On the second Millard touchdown drive, a fake punt gave the stalled drive new life. If the surprise is genuine, ge-nuine, fake punts can be effective, but in this case Park City expected it and kept its regular defense on the field, just in case. A mental breakdown, however, allowed the Eagle upback to sneak free for the needed yards on what became a scoring drive. Then, you can look at those two lapses... Burns thinks that if he could get another shot at Millard things could be different. "We played a pretty good team, but had a few breakdowns which hurt us. I think if 5V The Miners needed a little luck after letting Millard march easily down the field for the winning score, but these crossed fingers obviously weren't enough. we played them again we'd beat them." But he didn't dwell on Friday. He said to remember that there were only four teams left in 2A football on Friday, and Park City was one of them. "Initially, few people thought we would reach the semis," Burns said. "It was a good accomplishment for us to win the region, and go all the way to the semifinals. There were quite a few games where we were outmanned in athletic ability, but we won with intelligence, in-telligence, drive, intensity." It was the farthest Park City has gone since becoming a 2A school. And the Miners were only a hair away from becoming only the third Park City team to make it to the state finals, the others being in 1944 and 1980. Win or lose, Park City played well at Payson. The offense ran up a total of 257 yards on the day. For the first time this season that total was slanted toward the passing game. Passing yardage netted 147 yards, while the ground game could muster only 110. Miner quarterback Rory Tatton had a mixed day. His yardage was high, but his completion percentage was low, eight of 21. He also threw three interceptions. On the ground, Tatton had the play of the game. In the early fourth quarter, facing a third and goal situation from the seven of Millard, he nimbly avoided a surging rush and scampered into the end zone, aided by a crushing crackback block by Brett Benson. Tatton totalled 16 yards in seven rushes, of course with sack yardage subtracted. Eric Hales, returning from his week off with back spasms, didn't look to be at 100 percent, but still mashed for 72 yards on 23 carries. Those yards put him over the 1,000 yard mark for the season at 1,055 yards. His rushing career at Park City now totals over 2,000 yards, the second highest total since Troy Packard. Other than Hales, the Park City ground attackers were not very successful. suc-cessful. Scott Cartier had 14 yards on seven carries, and Randy Poison had eight yards on one attempt. After sparring in the early part of the Payson contest, Park City got serious with 3:50 left in the first quarter. Tatton hit Cartier for a 31-yard pickup which put the Miners at the Eagle 15 with a first down. But then the drive stalled, and Park City attempted a field goal from 28 yards out. It was no good, but Brinkerhoff was roughed by an overzealous Eagle to keep the ball in Park City hands. Two plays later, Hales was in on a dive play from the one for the TD. On the point after, which would prove costly, a moderately high snap was thought by holder Russ Mathews to be too high to bring down, so he pulled out and tried to go for two. He was unsuccessful, however, so the score stood at 6-0 Park City with 1:43 left. On the Eagles' next possession, Millard QB Matt Quarnberg didn't waste any time. On the first play from the 36 he threw the bomb to Doug Dearden, which narrowly cleared Peretti's reach. Dearden ended up on the Park City 11 before he was finally dragged down. Two plays later Quarnberg was in on the QB sneak from the four. The point after was wide right, so the score was knotted at 6-6 with 20 seconds left in the quarter. Park City threatened late in the photos by Randy Hanskat second quarter on a drive which began at the Miner 20. A Cartier screen pass and run netted 24 yards. Then a big Tatton scramble pushed the ball down to the Eagles' 31. A completion to Steve Osgothorpe and a Hales scamper found Park City at the 19 with 1:47 left. But the drive stalled when a missed miss-ed blocking assignment caused a Tatton sack back to the 33. Three straight incompletions finished the attempt. But the Eagles gave the Miners another shot on their first play after the aborted fourth down attempt. Miner defensive tackle Bart Davis see FOOTBALL page B2 Autumn briefs Let it make snow Since we haven't been getting much of the real stuff so far this year, we might as well have the fake stuff, right? The Park City Ski Area opened its snowmaking rights of fall last Thursday night, Nov. 5, according accor-ding to Joe Malina, head of snowmaking for the Park City Ski Area. Following that night's gunplay, it wasn't until Sunday evening when the temps were again cold enough to blow. Monday morning most of town could see the results on Payday, but the day's warm temperatures put the hurt on the new snow. Malina estimated that 10 percent of the night's work was lost during dur-ing the day. All is in preparation for the Thanksgiving Park City America's Opening Pro Cup races to be held on Payday. To be ready for that event, Malina would like to lay down a couple feet of base on Payday by Nov. 20. Whether that is possible or not is anyone's guess, he says. If the natural stuff doesn't cooperate, Malina estimated it would take from 20 to 30 million gallons of water to cover Payday with the manmade white stuff. To cover the entire run will take from seven to 14 nights of snowmaking. ParkWest freestyle meeting On the eerie night of Friday the 13th, the ParkWest Freestyle Program will hold it orientation meeting at 7 p.m. at the Branding Iron at the ParkWest Ski Area. Jon O'Brien, program director and director of freestyle skiing at ParkWest, said the meeting will detail what the program is all about, both for returning performers per-formers from last year and new additions. Factory representatives represen-tatives will also be on hand to help out with equipment needs, he said. To give the kids some incentive, incen-tive, O'Brien said freestyle movies will be shown throughout the evening. Last season 30 kids were involved in-volved in the ParkWest Freestyle Program. He is expecting a much higher level of interest this season. 4 |
