Spartans play great in playoff victory
| Cody Allen lies under the white shirts almost unseen as he catches the ball and Uintah makes the tackle. Emery players Nico Ricchetti, Wade Bohn and Jordan Gee help out. |
Forgetting the nonsense that had taken place a week earlier in a game at Park City, the Emery High Spartan football team opened the 2007 3-A football playoffs with a resounding 35-14 win against the Uintah Utes in Castle Dale. In another dominant performance, the Emery offense rolled up 449 yards of total offense while the Emery defense held the Uintah passing attack to a total of 66 yards.
Most teams that Emery has played this season have been running teams that throw the ball once in a while to keep other teams honest. Uintah is a team that bases their offensive efforts on throwing the ball and they run it once in a while to keep other teams honest. Against Emery, the effort failed.
Emery allowed Uintah to complete only 10 passes in 26 attempts. Cody Allen, Emery’s free safety, had two interceptions for the Spartans and had another ball bounce off his face mask as he led the pass coverage effort. Jordan Gee, Gatlin Huntington and Colby Snow also were out in coverage all game long and each did a commendable job. The Emery defensive backs, if their man actually caught the ball, were there to make the hard hit and bring them immediately down as they all tackled well throughout the game.
Emery allowed the Utes to rush for 91 yards with 48 yards coming on a play that was a touchdown for Uintah. Uintah only picked up 51 yards in the second half as Emery’s half time adjustments must have worked. Emery also recovered a fumble on a kick-off that nearly led to another score at the end of the first half.
Dempsey Jeffs had another good game at quarterback. Jeffs completed six of nine passes in the first half and seven of nine in the second half for a total of 13 for 18. The passes picked up 160 yards and they included three tosses for touchdowns. Jeffs hit wingback Jordan Gee for a 16-yard touchdown on Emery’s first series of the game. Just before halftime, Jeffs completed a 22-yard pass to Colby Snow for another touchdown. In the second half, Jeffs hit Cody Allen for another touchdown, this one from 20 yards out.
Mike Jones led the Spartan ground attack. As a team, Emery picked up 289 yards on the ground. Mike had 144 yards and had a 48-yard touchdown run in the second series of the game. Gee, Allen, Snow and Jeffs accounted for most of the other yardage. Senior Ryne Jones, who has been nursing a foot injury since the Carbon game, returned to action for the first time and ran the ball for 35 yards.
Emery’s offensive line and defensive front seven also did a great job of controlling the line of scrimmage and not allowing Uintah to ever get up a head of steam and cause a real threat.
The only negative in the game was the fact that Emery lost the ball three times in the first half with a fumble. The first fumble did Emery no harm but the second led to a Uintah touchdown, their first of the game. The last fumble occurred at the Uintah goal line and prevented another Emery touchdown.
In 11 possessions for Uintah they ran a total of 44 plays. Those 44 plays included two interceptions, a fumble and three punts. Emery, on the other hand had 78 offensive plays in the game.
Emery now will play Wasatch High in Heber City this Friday afternoon at 4 p.m. Wasatch was the region champion for region 10 but lost earlier in the season to North Sanpete so the game could be a toss up.
Three teams from region 8 won their games last weekend. Delta defeated Hurricane and Juan Diego defeated Ben Lomond besides Emery winning. Wasatch, Union and Judge Memorial won from region 10 and region champs Cedar and Logan also were victorious. Logan’s win came with 18 seconds left in the game. They blocked a Park City punt that they recovered in the end zone for a touchdown.