(Michael Mangum | Special to the Tribune) Jordan High junior Ethan Bolingbroke (4) pulls in a catch as Corner Canyon senior Conner Ebeling (7) pursues during their prep football matchup at Corner Canyon High School in Draper, UT on Wednesday, October 18, 2017.
Draper • Emotional Corner Canyon coach Eric Kjar spent a little more time than most opposing coaches hugging and conversing with a team he just had beaten 31-14 to secure an unbeaten Region 7 season Wednesday night.
The reason?
The veteran Utah prep coach moved up the hill from Jordan to Corner Canyon this season. Most of these Beetdigger players knew Kjar as their coach last season.
“It’s hard,” he said after individually greeting many of his former players. “I knew this first year would be a really tough year to do it. I’m really tight with a lot of those kids and care about them. It was really difficult.”
Both Corner Canyon and Jordan mostly are known for producing offensive fireworks. So the Chargers’ first-half lead of 7-0 seemed a bit of a surprise.
The lone score came when Corner Canyon star quarterback Zach Wilson, a Boise State commit, connected on a 69-yard bomb to Colton Lawson.
“I kind of expected that defensively,” said Kjar, whose Jordan teams were known as offensive juggernauts but often struggled on defense. “Defensively, we’ve been productive.”
Perhaps the big difference was that Jordan moved the ball well but could not convert third- and a few fourth-down tries to keep drives going.
Wilson, who also had a 20-yard scoring pass to Lawson to give the Chargers a 28-0 lead, had not played for the last two and a half games since an injury.
CORNER CANYON 31, JORDAN 14 <br>• Corner Canyon’s Zach Wilson returns after a two-game absence to toss two touchdown passes. <br>• Jordan quarterback Crew Wakely runs for a touchdown and passes for another. <br>• Corner Canyon goes unbeaten in Region 7, thanks in part to a fine defensive effort.
Kjar said he felt he needed to get one of the state’s top quarterbacks some work before the Chargers host Bountiful in the first round of the Class 5A playoffs next Friday.
“Getting Zach back and get him some reps,” Kjar said. “We just wanted to get some rust off of him. I was nervous. We were thinking about not playing him.”
The senior quarterback played well in his return and got some help in the form of touchdown runs by Tai Gonzales and Caden Johnson and a 33-yard field goal by Conner Ebeling.
But the big story may have been the defense, which hounded Jordan’s fine quarterback, Crew Wakley, all night.
The normally explosive Beetdiggers, who were missing a few key players due to injury, didn’t get on the board until the last three minutes of the game when Wakley passed for a score and ran for another.
Corner Canyon already was starting to celebrate by that time.