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Show Braves shock Highland, take second in region TOM HARALDSEN cper Sports Editor i jALT LAKE CITY - Before Region Four football season J E in September, everyone filed fi-led that Davis and Highland old be the top two teams in the pie. That left the third spot , and ncidentally the final state play-spot, play-spot, up for grabs. iOWHEN Highland and Bounti-battled Bounti-battled for the second place IhFriday afternoon in Salt Lake y, everyone knew that High-d, High-d, of course, would win. Just :BYU over UTEP--no problem, iss what? Jsing a punishing first half de-se, de-se, and a timely goal-line stand the game's final minutes, the ives shocked Highland 28-20, Inow enter the state playoffs as second seeded team from the ion. USEE the first half, you'd have ught Bountiful was the prohibi-: prohibi-: favorite. After both teams td in their initial two drives to something going, Bountiful ined the Rams and their home swhen Sid Smith, who should tainly make someone's all-state j i, rambled for 78 yards on first rafor a touchdown. Matt Bom- i made it 7-0 with 40 seconds , in the first quarter. '' lighland's third possession i the Rams frustrated again , nsively, and when Jerron Hale 0l ltd off QB Todd Iverson's pass k Highland 38, the Braves Jiin business again. FIVE PLAYS later, Smith scored his second of three touchdowns on an 1 1 yard run, the PAT making it 14-0 Bountiful with 8:22 left in the half. But Highland could still not muster mus-ter an offense. In fact, the Rams never crossed midfield in the first half and had just 41 total yards, all rushing, for the opening two periods. Bountiful began another scoring drive with just over three minutes to go in the half of its own 48. FROM THERE, quarterback Joe Covey began hitting his receivers, first Jim Crawford for 17, the Mike Steed for nine yards. Smith and Covey both picked up a few yards rushing, and on a first down play from the Highland 15, Covey found Dennis Irvin in the end zone and it was 21-0 Bountiful at the half. But the second 24 minutes were something different. Highland immediately im-mediately regained consciousness on its opening drive of the third quarter, driving 83 yards in 11 plays, with Matt Nielsen diving over from the one. The PAT attempt was wide, leaving the score 21-6 Bountiful. BUT THE Braves answered that with their final score , a 62 yard , six " play drive culminated by a three yard run by Smith. On that drive, Smith rushed three times for 39 yards. Bombard's kick gave Bountiful Boun-tiful a 28-6 lead with 4:24 left in the third period. It seemed to be over. Highland, however, had other ideas. Following the kickoff, the Rams began at their 20 yard line. On first down, Iverson threw a short pass over the middle to Chris Katsanevas, who was met by two Bountiful defenders. But the Brave's players essentially knocked knock-ed each other off the play, and Katsanevas Kat-sanevas ran 80 yards for a cheapie to make it 28-12 just 14 seconds after the Bountiful TD. FROM THAT point on, the Highland defense stiffened. The Rams moved on their next possession posses-sion 54 yards in 10 plays, Iverson scoring from the six with 9: 1 8 to go. Nielsen dove over for a two-point conversion, and suddenly, Highland High-land trailed by just 28-20. It was here that Bountiful almost self-destructed, and then found a way to save itself. Following an unsuccessful drive, the Braves were forced to punt. But the snap to punter Bombard was long, and by time he recovered, he was stopped stop-ped on the Bountiful 34. NOW ALL Highland had to do was score, get another two-point conversion, and the game would be tied. The Rams moved to the Bountiful Boun-tiful eight, where they had the ball first and goal . But after three plays , Highland faced a fourth and goal situation on the one. Brave coach Larry Wall called time out. "We'd been playing good defense de-fense all day, so I just came out to tell them to keep it up," he recalled after the game. The ball actually was on the one-foot line. Iverson kept and tried to sneak over center, but the Braves held. AND IT was here that Highland made a critical mistake. A Ram player, feeling Iverson had broken the plane of the end zone, argued the referee's decision a bit too aggressively. An unsportsmanlike conduct penalty moved Bountiful from its one foot line to the 15, and from there, the Braves were able to move the ball to the 31 before punting. Highland's last-ditch scoring effort was stopped when Dusty Jacobs, one of the real unsung heroes of Bountiful's season, recovered reco-vered a fumble at the Brave's 37. WALL WAS of course happy ab out the win. "Getting up 21-0 put us in a great position," he stated. "I thought we played a helluva defense de-fense in the first half and the goal line stand was superb." More importantly, the win enables en-ables Bountiful to play the third place team from Region Three, a team that won't be decided until a playoff on Tuesday. That means Bountiful will play Friday against a team that has to play two games next week. The importance of the win at Highland is self-explanatory. self-explanatory. BOUNTIFUL finished the regu lar season 4-1 in league, 7-2 overall. GAME AT A GLANCE: Bountiful 7 14 7 0-28 Highland 0 0 12 8-20 B-S. Smith 78 run (Bombard kick) B--S. Smith 1 1 run (Bombard kick) B-Irvin 15 pass from Covey (Bombard (Bom-bard kick) H-Nielsen 1 run (kick wide) B--S. Smith 3 run (Bombard kick) H-Katsanevas 80 yard pass from Iverson (kick blocked) H Iverson 6 run (Nielsen run) |