Draper • For the second time this season Corner Canyon High School came up victorious over the American Fork Cavemen but this time the stakes were higher.
In a 45-28, it was all Chargers from the start of the game.
The Chargers scored a touchdown on their first four possessions of the game and jumped to a 28-7 led by halftime. USC commit Devin Brown was slinging the ball all over the place in the half, connecting with Dylan Carlsen, BYU commit Cody Hagen and Jon King for three of the four touchdowns.
But the connection between Hagen and Brown was something that teams dream of from a WR and QB combo. During multiple points of the game Brown was putting the ball in the perfect place for Hagen to snatch it, even when covered by multiple defenders.
“His speed is just such a mismatch. I mean, he’s one of the fastest kids in the state, and in the country,” Brown said. “And he’s just so clean out of his routes. And it just makes it hard on defenses, you know, they got to honor him. And they got to play two guys on him a lot of times. And you know, we have much more weapons than just Cody. So it opens up the other guy, so it’s good to just spread it around.”
The connection between the two is something head coach Eric Kjar says has gone back to how they practice, bonding with all the practice reps.
“They get a ton of reps and practice and get a lot of time throwing to each other and seeing each other and we work on a lot of stuff with those two and with you know all those guys. We try to complement all of them,” Kjar said. “But you know, Cody’s such a dynamic talent and Devin’s got a great arm so it’s, you know, such a good match with both of those two.”
Brown also found Jett Meine multiple times for huge gains during the game.
“I mean, it’s a fun night when you can hit every receiver,” Brown said.
On the other side of the ball, Boise State commit Maddox Madsen seemed to put the Cavemen on his back after his offensive line struggled to give him any time in the pocket. He rushed for a touchdown and a 2-pt conversion while also dishing it out to a few of his receivers.
Jace Hull brought in one of the AFHS touchdown passes from Madsen, while Trey Roberts had two of his own.
Kjar commended Madsen for his play not only in Friday night’s game but also during his career at American Fork.
“He’s such a good quarterback. He’s awesome. He’s been tough to play against for three years now,” Kjar said. “It seems like he’s been here forever. So it’d be fun to finally have him move on. He’s a stud though. He’s been such a good quarterback.”
According to Brown the CCHS defense had to honor Madsen’s passing ability which forced him to have to tuck the ball and run more than normal.
“They have to honor his pass. But at the same time, they also offer honors legs, so it’s a little hard to game plan for him, but our defense just came really well together and just did what they had to do and they executed really well,” Brown said.
Next week Corner Canyon will take on Weber, the lone team left in the playoffs not from 6A Region 4.
“I know they have some really talented players. I know the DeVries [Cannon DeVries] kid is really really good and the [Aisea] Moa kid is a great player too,” Kjar said. “They got some good kids. I just know they’re really talented and have a lot of good players. So they’re a good team, that region is tough up there and we’ll have to be ready to go and bring our A-game because they’re a good team.”
Brown, who is not from Utah didn’t even know where Weber High School was located but the mentality was still to go 1-0 next week and punch their ticket to the 6A State Championship.
Corner Canyon and Weber will kick off at 2:30 pm at Rice-Eccles Stadium on Friday, Nov. 12.