COMMENTARY – Snow Canyon High School opened its doors in 1994 and fans who remember those days know that the gold and green Warriors immediately established an impressive football tradition.

Snow Canyon was 3-5 that first year, but beat a couple of playoff teams and set the table for what would be the best 3A football program in the state over the next half-dozen years.

From 1995 to 2000, the Warriors would go 59-10, win two state titles (’96 and ’99) and make it to at least the semifinals five times.

Led by veteran coach Bill Jacobsen, Snow Canyon went from new school to perennial title-contender almost immediately.

Since then, Snow Canyon has made it past the quarterfinals just once, in 2006, in Jacobsen’s brief return as the Warriors head coach. Since ’06, Snow Canyon hasn’t even made the playoffs once.

And so, it was time for another change at head coach.

Marcus Matua, who was already on campus as a guidance counselor and assistant girls basketball coach, is the new head football coach at Snow Canyon.

A native of Kearns, Matua has also been the faculty adviser for the highly-successful boys and girls rugby programs at Snow Canyon.

Jacobsen showed that success is there for the taking at Snow Canyon with the right combination of coaching and hard work. Matua will try to rekindle that magic formula.

He was chosen from among 14 applicants to replace Jay Graft, who stepped down at the end of the Warriors 6-4 season in 2012. Graft was 33-36 at Snow Canyon and 37-40 overall as a head coach.

Still looking for a feel of who is going to be the team to beat in Region 9 basketball this season? So are we, and the preseason hasn’t helped much.

With such varied opponents and wildly fluctuating scores, it’s hard to glean anything from the preseason.

For instance, Pine View is 3-1 and is averaging 66 points a game. But what do we know about Tuba City and Chinle, two Arizona prep schools that the Panthers beat down in Page?

Desert Hills is also 3-1, but was beaten fairly soundly by Springville. Snow Canyon got blasted in two games this weekend, but against 5A contenders Alta and Jordan, is that really any surprise? Cedar looks very competitive and Canyon View is always a wildcard. Plus, we can’t leave out to playoff powers from last year, Dixie and Hurricane.

The good news is that we won’t have to wait long to start sorting these things out. There a couple of region dates scheduled before the holiday break.

This Wednesday is the region opener, with Dixie at Hurricane, Cedar at Desert Hills and Canyon View at Snow Canyon.

In girls hoops, Desert Hills like the early team to beat, starting the year 5-0 and blowing everybody away. The scores are staggering. The Lady Thunder beat Lone Peak 68-27 and won three games Thursday through Saturday by a combined score of 193-95.

Dixie is 5-1 and doing it with defense. Friday, the Lady Flyers allowed Juab just 14 points in a 53-14 drubbing.

And don’t count out Snow Canyon. The defending state champs have lost a couple of games, but have beaten two 5A schools in Alta and Lone Peak.

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