Spartans club Cougars in Union

By GARY ARRINGTON Sports writer

Emery traveled to Union last Friday night to play their final preseason football game and came home with a 46-20 victory over the host Union Cougars. Emery now will start region 12 action with the Richfield Wildcats coming to town this Friday night in Emery’s homecoming game.
In this game, Emery had possession of the ball 11 times and scored on seven of those possessions. On the other four possessions, Emery punted once, fumbled the ball into the end zone once after an 83-yard drive, had time run out at the end of the first half when Emery was at the Union 2-yard line and the final possession of the game when Emery ran the clock out.
Tanner Procarione scored Emery’s first touchdown of the evening on a 15-yard reception from quarterback Derek Tuttle as Emery wrapped up a 54-yard drive. Tuttle and Procarione also connected on a 30-yard pass in the drive.
Corey Hansen, a fullback, scored the Spartans second touchdown on a 1-yard run up the middle culminating a 72-yard drive. Two passes to wide receiver Cody Jones were the big plays in the drive, one for 18 yards and the other for 20 yards.
Dusty Jensen scored from 38 yards out on Emery’s next possession on a Tuttle pass to put Emery up 20-7. This was the score at the half.
Emery punted on their first possession of the second half and then scored on their next two possessions. Tuttle hit running back JT Noyes for a 13-yard touchdown as Emery went up 26-7. The big play in the series was a 16-yard reception by Hansen.
Joey Stream caught a pass on Emery’s next series and ran it in from 41 yards out to score his first touchdown of the season.
Emery marched 83 yards on their next possession but was called for fumbling into the end zone even though it appeared that Emery had clearly scored.
Emery then scored on short drives as Hansen scored his second touchdown on a 2-yard run and then when the second offense took over Jade Fielder scored on the next possession on a 22-yard run on a hand-off from quarterback Nick Stoddard.
After amassing more than 400 yards on the ground last week, Emery did most of the damage this week through the air. Tuttle was 11 for 20 in passing for 226 yards and four touchdowns. Cody Jones completed one pass for 18 yards. Those four touchdowns were to four different receivers.
Union’s defense was out to stop the run but left themselves vulnerable to the pass. Emery ran the ball 27 times for only 159 yards but for three touchdowns. Emery had 403 yards of total offense in the game.
Emery’s defense also continued to play well. On the first scoring drive of the evening by Union, it appeared that the Spartans had stopped Union three times with recovered fumbles but each time the ball was given back to Union because the officials had blown the ball dead or something like that. At least once, Union had never gained possession.
Union picked up 2 yards in their first series, 0 yards in their second series and 2 yards in their third series as the Spartans stopped every thing the Cougars tried and wanted to do. This was their first half drives.
Emery plays a 4-4 defense with four down linemen, four linebackers and three defensive backs. As a unit, they have played well this season in limiting their opponents to fewer than 200 yards a game of offense. Emery plays well as a unit. The homecoming game starts at 7 p.m. this Friday night.