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Show Lancers advance to State Class 4-A tourney Thur. 7 jj - ' By GARY R. BLODGETT Sports Editor LAYTON The Layton High Lancers found out Friday afternoon after-noon that the ladder to success in the Class 4-A state championships is not going to be easy to climb. Even the first rung a regional playoff game against West Jordan was not an easy win. In fact, the grid game could have gone either way. But the Lancers held on and finally fin-ally pulled out a 17-10 win before a large hometown crowd. It was a good game for the Region One champions to have behind them. Layton will now advance to the Class 4-A quarterfinals this weekend along with Clearfield and Davis giving Davis County three teams with a shot at the state title late next month. Clearfield earned the right to advance to the quarterfinals with a one-point, 13-12 victory over Bountiful; and Davis advanced to the quarterfinals by whipping Box Elder, 35-14. Other 4-A teams to compete in the state tournament are Bonneville Bonnevil-le by virtue of a stunning 23-21 win over defending state champs Highland; High-land; Orem with a 54-9 trouncing of Taylorsville; Skyline by beating Brighton, 37-12; and Cottonwood by virtue of a 17-7 win over American Amer-ican Fork. (A schedule of quarterfinal games will appear in Thursday's edition of the Clipper.) West Jordan took an early lead over the sluggish Lancers and Coach Tom Moore and his staff had to do some pep talking to get their team back on track. The Lancers Lan-cers had been riding a high tide until un-til they played Roy in the final regular regu-lar season game a week ago. The Lancers lost that one and it appeared that the Jaguars just might pull a big upset in this playoff game. West Jordan took possession on the Layton 40 after a nice put return re-turn by Brett Molen. On the first play from scrimmage, Wilson' Kauvaka ripped up the middle and rambled 38 yards to the two. It seemed that the Lancer defense de-fense didn't realize just how fast the 6-foot 1, 235-pound fullback could run. He almost left the Lancers Lan-cers in the dust but was finally overtaken just before he reached the end zone. Roger Richardson gave the rambling fullback time to catch his breath by moving the ball to the one. From there, Kauvaka plunged over for the score and West Jordan was ahead 7-0 with 5:35 left in the first quarter. Layton, unsuccessful in its attempt to move the ball on the first series of downs, took the ensuing kickoff and moved steadily down-field down-field for 74 yards and a touchdown. This drive looked like the Lancers Lan-cers of old as quarterback Troy Murray connected on a pass to Rick Sparks to the 37 yard line and two plays later hit Chris Trujillo at midfield. Tom Moore then rambled to the Jaguars' 37. A late hit penalty moved the ball to the 22 from where Murray again hit Trujillo on a nifty sideline pass play. Keith Lawrence moved the ball to the five. On the next two plays, Lawrence plunged to within one-foot of goal the and then dove from his fullback position those last few inches for the score. However, the try for an extra point was blocked and with 46 seconds left in the first period the Lancers were trailing 7-6. The Lancers went ahead to stay early in the second period when Lawrence again scored, this time from four yards out. But after missing mis-sing the prior PAT, the Lancers went for a two-point conversion to get the point back and were successful. suc-cessful. The TD play was set up by a 30-yard pass play from Murray to Chris Thompson on the 12 yard line. Lawrence then ran up the middle to the four to set the stage for the score. West Jordan gambled twice on fourth down and short yardage, the first time the Jaguars were successful success-ful but the second time the Lancers held and took possession on the Layton 45. Layton moved the ball to the four yard line on a long pass to Trujillo and some good running by Lawrence. But after being thrown for a loss and a couple of pass in-completions, in-completions, Murray was called on to kick a 33-yard field goal. Murray, who does just about everything ev-erything there is to do for the Lancers, Lan-cers, was good on his kick and Layton had increased its lead to 17-7 at halftime. West Jordan's Matt Reid recovered reco-vered a Lancer fumble on the Layton 20 and after being held for three downs, Don Hunsaker booted a 37-yard field goal and it was 17-10 early in the third period. Neither team scored in the final quarter although both made serious se-rious threats. The turning point for the Lancer win came late in the game with Layton leading by seven and the Jaguars on the roll. |