High school football: Morgan advances to 3A championship after nervy semifinal win over upset-minded Manti

For the first time pretty much all season, Morgan’s dominant football team found itself in a nail biter in the 3A semifinals Friday.
Prior to Friday, It had been 10 weeks since Morgan’s last competitive game, a 26-20 win against Skyline, Idaho, in Week 3. And in the Trojans’ only six games against fellow 3A foes, they’d won by a combined score of 343-13.
Many assumed another blowout was in order when the top-seed Trojans faced No. 4 seed Manti in the semis at Zions Bank Stadium in Herriman, especially with the Templars down to their backup quarterback.
It most definitely didn’t play out that way. Heavily-favored Morgan had to sweat out a wild game throughout against Manti with numerous momentum swings, eventually pulling away with two unanswered scores over the final 17 minutes for the 42-28 victory.
“We knew Manti would be prepared. We knew right from the beginning that it was going to be a game. They’ve got a great bunch of kids, great community, so we knew it was going to be a battle,” said Morgan coach Jared Barlow.
With the win, Morgan advances to next Saturday’s 3A state championship game at Southern Utah University against the Richfield-Grantsville winner to be played Friday evening.
There was no shortage of excitement on Friday in a game that featured 922 yards of total offense, six turnovers, a blocked punt and 17 penalties that brought back several big plays.
Morgan led 28-21 at the half, and despite briefly allowing Manti to tie the game after a blocked punt, it pulled away with a dominant effort at the line of scrimmage.
“This week we just had some things happen, kids get hurt, some crazy plays that happened, turnovers and things like that. There’s a lot of things that could’ve gone that first half and we were lucky to be ahead coming out of that half,” said Barlow.
Luck was not on Morgan’s side on that potentially change-changing blocked punt at the 8:40 mark of the third quarter. Will Osborn blocked the punt after a dropped snap, and then Lincoln Alder jumped on the ball in the end zone, tying the game at 28-28.
From that moment on, Morgan reverted to its bread and better — the ground game.
It responded with a nine-play scoring drive with just one pass attempt, with Lincoln Gilson scoring on a 3-yard plunge as Morgan pulled back ahead 35-28.
Early in the fourth quarter he scored again on a 2-yard score stretching the lead to 42-28.
“We talked about way back in our summer camp, if we want to be successful as a team we’ve got to be able to rely on the offensive line and that’s actually part of what we talked about at halftime, we are just going to ride you,” said Barlow.
The Trojans finished with 222 rushing yards, led by Drew Korth with 129. Beck Sheffield passed for 288 yards and a score.
Manti was led by Carter Mason at quarterback, who threw for 272 yards and a touchdown in just his second game as the starting QB.
In the first half on Friday, the first and second quarters couldn’t have played out much differently. After a scoreless first quarter, the teams combined for 49 points in the second with 416 yards of total offense.
Carter threw for 192 yards and a TD in the first half while Sheffield threw for 204 yards and another score.
The first 35 points of the second quarter were scored in less than six minutes in a wild sequence of big play after big play.
Manti struck first on a 53-yard double pass that concluded with wide receiver Stone Mortensen connecting with Tala Taulapapa on a 53-yard TD.
Morgan responded quickly, tying the game on a Boston Zack 4-yard TD run, and following a Manti fumble on the ensuing kickoff the Trojans struck quick again for the 14-7 lead.
Manti tied the game back up at 14-14 at the 6:49 mark on a Ty Pringle 25-yard TD pass from Mason, but in a blink Morgan was back in front 28-14 on TD runs by Korth and Sheffield.
The underdog Templars responded in a huge way to get points on the board before halftime as they marched 73 yards in 11 plays with Taulapapa scoring on a 2-yard run with 22 seconds remaining to whittle the deficit to 28-21 by halftime.