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Show greets Murray High School's performance in the 3-A State Football Tournament has to be one of the big surprises of the year. Murray has advanced into the semi-finals with upset victories over South, 14 to 10 and Davis, 27 to 20. The Davis Darts pocketed first place in Region 4 and South placed second in Region 5. The South crew handed Judge Memorial, the first place team in Region 7, one of its few losses. Judge Memorial defeated Murray during league action, but Murray downed South, a team that toppled Judge Memorial. Uintah completely out played Murray in the first half in a region encounter between the two teams. The Utes had an 8-0 lead at halftime on a 68 yard off-tackle off-tackle run by Mark Robb and a safety by Randy Smuin. Murray couldn't do anything right in the first half and were lucky they returned to the locker room only behind by eight points as twice the Utes failed to score touchdowns when they were within Murray's ten yard line. Uintah moved all the way to Murray's half foot line, but couldn't get the football in the end zone. The Spartans didn't look like the powerful team, which won the state championship a few years ago, as they suffered blocked punts, quarterback and runningback sacks and various other items. Murray, which had been famous for powerful football teams, appeared ap-peared to be going downhill in the world of football after the first half in the encounter en-counter with Uintah. Murray played a lot better in the second se-cond half as thev scored two touchdowns and a two-point conversion to win the contest with Uintah by the score of 15 to 8. The Spartans won the game with Uintah Uin-tah due to an excellent aerial attack and some mistakes by the Utes. Brent Hilton fired a 23-yard aerial to John Durfey on Uintah's 3 yard line on a 4 and 12 situation. Hilton scored the touchdown on a quarterback sneak and hit Rick Elloreaga with an aerial in the end zone for the two-point conversion. Uintah intercepted a pass by Hilton in the fourth quarter, but the ball was fumbled on the first play and Murray recovered the ball in Uintah territory. Durfey nabbed a pass at the five yard line and Tony Peterson darted one yard for the winning touchdown and the extra ex-tra point kick by Dave Erickson was good. Murray outplayed Uintah in the second se-cond half, but the Utes continued to shut down the Spartans' running attack as passes moved the Murray crew down the field. The Spartans looked like a dead team in the first half in the game with Uintah and it appeared, if Murray advanced to the state meet, that they would be blasted in the first round. However, Murray came alive in the second half in the battle with Uintah and defeated the Utes and then downed Tooele, South and Davis. Murray scored 15 points in the second half, but they still didn't look anything like the powerful Murray teams before the 1979 season. Murray is an improved team in 1980, but even still they weren't figured to advance far in the state tournament. tour-nament. The Spartans advanced into the state semi-finals with a 27 to 20 victory over the Davis Darts. Davis jumped out to a 14-0 lead in the first quarter. Peterson scored Murray's first touchdown on a sweep and Chris Ellett scored a touchdown on a 15 yard pass play to cut Davis' lead to 14 to 13. Brent Hatch of Davis returned a punt for a touchdown, but Hilton connected with Ellorreaga on a 12 yard pass for a touchdown. The-score The-score at the end of the first half was Davis, 20 and Murray, 19. Murray's defensive tackle John Pelletier picked up the ball in mid-air and returned it 40 yards for the winning touchdown in the second half. In other 3-A games Viewmont upset Cyprus, 28 to 6; West downed Mountain View, 28 to 7 and Highland toppled Judge Memorial, 13 to 3. For many years Uintah High School football teams haven't gotten much respect and now teams are finding out Uintah isn't a pushover any more and they better be ready for a football game when they battle the Utes. The Murray Spartans discovered Uintah football is for real when the Utes grabbed an 8-0 lead in the first half. The Spartans could see their state tournament chances fading and jumped back into the tournament picture with a hard fought rally in the second half. The game with the Uintah Utes helped to prepare the Spartans for close encounters en-counters of the state football tournament tourna-ment kind. |