HURRICANE – Fans couldn’t literally see the years of frustration fall off of the Snow Canyon players, but fall away it did.
The Warriors pounded Hurricane 38-20 Friday night, shirking off five years of frustrating losses against the Tigers.
“We wanted this win, really bad,” said SC running back Zach Kennedy, who had 161 combined rushing/receiving yards and two touchdowns. “People need to take notice of us now. We’re for real.”
Snow Canyon mashed together 282 rushing yards and even passed the ball pretty well, despite the gusting wind. Jake Frei and Connor Parry combined for 161 passing yards and a score.
“Jake is developing well,” Parry said. “I even got to throw one. Of course, he was wide open.”
Early on, it looked like Snow Canyon was going to blow Hurricane out, but an interception changed momentum and seemed to turn the tide in the Tigers’ favor.
Ahead 6-0 after a 1-yard Parry TD dive, the Warriors jumped on a Jeremiah Ieremiah fumble and took over at the Hurricane 21. But on the next play, Adlai Elison intercepted Frei at the 8-yard line.
The quick turnaround sparked Hurricane, which loaded up an 11-play, 92-yard drive to take a 7-6 lead early in the second quarter. Kole Richins got the TD with a 10-yard scamper.
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But Snow Canyon responded with a long drive of its own. After a touchback, the Warriors marched 80 yards on 13 plays and consumed nearly six minutes of clock. Parry’s second TD of the game made it 14-7 (with a Kennedy two-point conversion) with 2:46 to go until halftime. But the Warriors weren’t done.
SC forced a Hurricane punt and, despite a stiff headwind, zipped up the field for another score. Kennedy and Chance Thorkleson caught big passes on the nine-play drive that culminated with a Kennedy grab in traffic from 6-yards out. That made it 20-7 with just 7.7 seconds left in the half.
Trevor Horlacher scored on the first drive of the second half for Snow Canyon to make it 26-7. Hurricane answered with a Ieremiah TD early in the fourth quarter to make it 26-13, but that’s as close as the Tigers would get as Kennedy and Parry both scored again to push it to 38-13. Richins got a second TD with a 32-yard catch with 16 seconds left to close out the scoring.
“We basically went out and got it handed to us by Pine View,” SC coach Marcus Matua said. “We knew after that that no one was going to respect us just by us showing up. We knew we had to go out and start earning respect. Hurricane’s a tough team, regardless of what their record is. They came out and wanted to smack us around and it was just a matter of going out and weathering the storm early.”
The Warriors, who forced four Tigers turnovers in the game, piled up 19 first downs and never punted in the game. SC converted 6 of 8 third downs on the night and were successful on fourth down twice in as many attempts.
Connor Parry had a big game, rushing for 148 yards and three TDs, plus a 39-yard pass to Kennedy. Parry has 386 rushing yards in the last two games.
The Warriors, now 5-1 overall and 2-1 in region play, battle at home vs. Cedar next Thursday.
Hurricane, which had 283 yards of offense, spread the ball around with four players (Richins, Ieremiah, Cody Lebaron and JD Stanworth) all rushing for at least 44 yards. But the loss is the third straight for HHS and the sixth overall. Hurricane, 1-6 and 1-3, lost just seven games combined in the previous four seasons (2009-12).
The Tigers play at home vs. Pine View next Thursday.
Stats: schur100413
Related post: Week 7 photo gallery
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Ya gotta wonder WHAT has changed in the coaching at Hurricane. It’s not about the boys. I’ve heard it said that “Hurricane bleeds high school football” and know that those kids are trying to fulfill expectations. It’s about the staff. Coach Homer is a good coach/man, so support has probably faltered somewhere. Or, is it just a shift in school priorities? If so, tell the boys….