(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Corner Canyon celebrates after the 6A state football championship game against Lone Peak at Cedar Valley High School in Eagle Mountain on Friday, Nov. 20, 2020.
Eagle Mountain • Corner Canyon High senior quarterback Jaxson Dart had a strong feeling that 2020 would be a great year for the Chargers. On Friday, it turned out that he was right.
Dart led the Chargers to a 6A state title against the Lone Peak Knights in a 45-7 dubbing at Cedar Valley High. The quarterback threw four touchdown passes and ran for one more, all the while amassing 322 unofficial passing yards. He needed 365 to break the state record for most passing yards in a season.
Dart ended his senior season with 67 passing touchdowns, which is nine more than then previous state record set in 2017. He connected with four different receivers Friday.
But the numbers don’t mean all that much to Dart.
“My focus this whole year was just to win a state championship,” Dart said. “I just felt like production with winning games, that those things would come along. So I was just trying to win and do my part.”
Dart transferred to Corner Canyon from Roy High before this year and brought along with him his hypercompetitive personality. He won his first state championship amid many Chargers players who on Friday picked up their third in a row.
“There’s only so many people in the world who get this opportunity,” Dart said. “I’m just grateful to be a part of this program and carry on the streak.”
The Chargers (14-0) now have won three consecutive state championships — the 5A in 2018 and 6A in 2019 and 2020. The steak puts Chargers coach Eric Kjar in rare company among other high school coaches in the history of Utah. Only five other coaches have won three state championships in a row.
Kjar started at Corner Canyon just four years ago. His players — the ones who have been along for the ride for a while — hold him in high regard.
“Coach Kjar is just like our dad,” said senior offensive lineman Jackson Light, who is committed to play college football at the University of Oregon. “It sucks for seniors that we have to leave, but it’s just great that we’ve been leaving a legacy and really just showing it out for him.”
The Chargers built an early lead on the Knights and never looked back. They put up 21 points in the first quarter and didn’t allow any to Lone Peak, which came into Friday’s game as the No. 2 seed.
Lone Peak (12-2) scored its only touchdown with 5:59 left in the game when senior quarterback Luke Romney threw a 5-yard pass to junior Weston Covey.
The first game between the two teams was much closer despite the Chargers prevailing. Coming into Friday, the Chargers felt they could play better on both sides of the ball. But the result felt unexpected considering that Lone Peak had lost only one game all season prior to the title game.
“We excepted a fight from them for sure,” Light said. “But we just knew that we were going to come out harder and faster and we wanted it more.”
Senior running back Austin Bell got to suit up and take a knee in the victory formation. He tore an ACL and missed most of the season. Kjar said putting Bell out there was planned.
“We didn’t want to kind of jinx ourselves, but we had talked about it,” Kjar said. “We were going to put him in uniform and if we had the chance to kneel it out, he would be the guy for sure to kneel it out.”
According to Felt’s Facts, Dart also broke the state record for total offense in a season (5,867 yards), while Noah Kjar broke the state record for career receptions with 285
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