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Woods Cross • In some ways, Corner Canyon's unlikely come-from-behind 21-20 victory over Woods Cross Wednesday night was meaningless. After all, this was a late-season non-league game that would have no effect on either of the unbeaten teams' state tournament seeding.

Yet, in a little under three minutes when the Charger offense finally found itself after being dominated much of the night, the second-year Draper school learned a whole lot about itself.

With 2:59 to play, it appeared Woods Cross could run out the clock and remain unbeaten.

But Corner Canyon refused to quit. And, when that occurs, strange things happen.

The unlikely turn of events began when the Chargers' Luke Herrmann recovered a Woods Cross fumble on the Wildcat 40. On the next play, Corner Canyon quarterback Michael Ebeling found Garrett Michaell for a touchdown.

Still, with time on their side, the Wildcats seemed to be in good shape. But their offense was forced to punt. With 1:36 to go, Corner Canyon needed to go 90 yards for a touchdown.

No problem.

Three plays and 30 seconds later, Ebeling found Zach Franckowiak in the end zone for a 22-yard score.

Sensing both his team and the Wildcats were beat up and exhausted at this point of an emotional game, Corner Canyon coach Don Eck elected to eschew the overtime and go for two. Ebeling faked a pass and raced around the right side of the Woods Cross defense for the winning two-point conversion with 1:06 to play. The desperate Woods Cross offense could not duplicate Corner Canyon's comeback and watched as its hopes for an unbeaten season ended.

"Our kids are beat up and tired and we had a lot of kids going both ways," said Eck. "I didn't want to go into overtime."

Ebeling said his team knew it could come back despite a rash of turnovers and a tough Woods Cross defense.

"We knew we couldn't give up," he said. "We went to our fast pace offense and two-minute offense. We had faith and we knew we could do it. We were down two scores and we would never give up. We're 9-0 and undefeated."

Eck gave much of the credit for the comeback to his defense.

"Our defense was playing its absolute guts off all day and our offense had to help us," he said.

The veteran coach admitted that the game itself meant little except for his team keeping its spotless record.

"I don't want to play them again," said Eck. "They had some guys injured and out and we had some guys out. It's a good win because it keeps our undefeated season alive. We have one more with Murray next week. We'll get ready and see what happens at state."

The loss had to be devastating for Woods Cross, which led much of the way and, until the final three minutes, held Corner Canyon to just two Braxton Martin field goals. The Wildcats built that 20-6 lead on an 18-yard pass from Tanner Hammond to Cole Cappeluci, a 5-yard run by Tomasi Giles and two field goals by Jeremy Hills.

In the end, though, Corner Canyon refused to die. And that's why the visitors celebrated their bus ride home to Draper in style. —

Storylines

O Corner Canyon quarterback Michael Ebeling throws two touchdown passes in the final 2:59 and then runs in the two-point conversion to preserve the Chargers unbeaten mark.

• Charger field goal kicker Braxton Marston booted a 42-yard and 24-yard field goals.

• Previously unbeaten Woods Cross led 20-6 with 2:59 to play, only to lose the lead and game.