Prep football playoffs: Bonneville’s season again ends at home against Alta
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- Bonneville’s Reese Cantwell, left, and Alta’s Noah Forbes (1) reach for the ball during a 5A first-round playoff game Friday, Oct. 25, 2024, in Washington Terrace.
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- Bonneville tacklers take down an Alta ball carrier during a 5A first-round playoff game Friday, Oct. 25, 2024, in Washington Terrace.
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- Bonneville’s Brody Willis, right, catches a touchdown in front of Alta’s Noah Forbes (1) during a 5A first-round playoff game Friday, Oct. 25, 2024, in Washington Terrace.
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- Bonneville’s Cole Lueders (4) throws a pass against Alta during a 5A first-round playoff game Friday, Oct. 25, 2024, in Washington Terrace.
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- Bonneville’s Ashton Spackman catches a pass against Alta during a 5A first-round playoff game Friday, Oct. 25, 2024, in Washington Terrace.
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- Alta and Bonneville face off during a 5A first-round playoff game Friday, Oct. 25, 2024, in Washington Terrace.
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- A Bonneville defender jars the ball loose from an Alta player during a 5A first-round playoff game Friday, Oct. 25, 2024, in Washington Terrace.
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- Bonneville’s Daniel Park (8) leads a team tackle of an Alta player during a 5A first-round playoff game Friday, Oct. 25, 2024, in Washington Terrace.
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- Bonneville’s Tyler Cole (22) catches a pass against Alta during a 5A first-round playoff game Friday, Oct. 25, 2024, in Washington Terrace.
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- Bonneville’s Gage Canfield (66) celebrates with a teammate during a 5A first-round playoff game against Alta on Friday, Oct. 25, 2024, in Washington Terrace.
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- Bonneville’s Ashton Spackman, left, tries to avoid an Alta tackler during a 5A first-round playoff game Friday, Oct. 25, 2024, in Washington Terrace.
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- Bonneville’s Urban Estes (77) tangles with an Alta player during a 5A first-round playoff game Friday, Oct. 25, 2024, in Washington Terrace.
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- Bonneville’s Tyson Pututau (55) tangles with Alta’s Cole Albrecht (11) during a 5A first-round playoff game Friday, Oct. 25, 2024, in Washington Terrace.
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- Bonneville’s Ashton Spackman, left, carries the ball against Alta in a 5A first-round playoff game Friday, Oct. 25, 2024, in Washington Terrace.
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- Bonneville players take down Alta’s Nolan Lohnes (23) during a 5A first-round playoff game Friday, Oct. 25, 2024, in Washington Terrace.
WASHINGTON TERRACE — In recent years, Bonneville High School has become a satellite campus of sorts for the Alta Hawks.
In 2020 and 2022, the Hawks hopped on a bus, traveled 50 miles north and ended Bonneville’s season with convincing, 20-plus point playoff victories on Wallace and Thom Budge Field.
Friday evening, for the third time in five years, Alta again left the Laker contingent exiting the stadium disappointed.
The Hawks picked apart Bonneville’s defense for most of the night while the Laker offense could not counter and the Hawks won their sixth straight playoff opener by a 38-22 score.
“It’s a tough matchup,” Bonneville coach Jantz Afuvai said. “They’ve kind of got our number.”
Neither squad was shy about virtually abandoning the run game. The teams combined for 115 passing attempts, mostly of the dink and dunk variety.
The Lakers were also handicapped by the absence of all-purpose star Isaac Mansaray, who missed the matchup due to injury.
Despite not playing the full slate of games, according to MaxPreps, the senior ranked third in Class 5A entering the contest with 953 receiving yards on 70 receptions.
“You can’t replace a kid like Isaac,” Afuvai said. “He brings a dynamic extra gear that you just can’t simulate. We just had to rely on other guys to start making some plays but you can’t really replace a kid like that. To game plan for that is a big one, man; it’s hard.”
The Lakers tried to seize control early.
On the game’s opening drive, Bonneville elected to run a fake punt from its own 42. Paden Toula’s pass fell incomplete and the Hawks were ready to capitalize.
Eight plays later, junior quarterback Tucker Brown found Evan Morton on a 9-yard slant to make it 7-0.
The Lakers quickly rebounded and tied the score when Cole Lueders tossed an 18-yard pass to Brody Willis, who made a nice adjustment in the end zone to come back and snare it.
Alta then inflicted death by a thousand paper cuts upon the Lakers, methodically moving the ball up and down the field. The Hawks tacked on a 44-yard John McAllister field goal and another Brown to Morton TD reception before the end of the first quarter to push their advantage to 17-7.
Bonneville’s offense advanced the ball well but was repeatedly stopped from turning yards into points.
The defensive highlight for the Lakers came in the second quarter when batting down a pass on fourth-and-goal from the 1. Unfortunately, the cost of the stop was the fatiguing effect of a 19-play drive that burned over half of the second period.
Still, Bonneville remained within striking distance with the score 17-7 at the half.
Unfortunately for the Lakers, the deficit quickly moved out of reach as two more unanswered Brown touchdown passes upped the Alta lead to 31-7.
“It’s all about momentum, especially in these late games in the year,” Afuvai said. “If you don’t get momentum established it’s going to be a long night. Everybody is kind of at that point where the finality of the season is near and so they know that swing, once it starts moving it’s hard to get it back. I think that’s what happened. We got behind and lost field position and they stayed steady on what they were doing.
“The game plan for us was to take away any of the cheapies. They stayed disciplined to what they did and we couldn’t get to that quarterback because they were nickel and diming us so much. That adds into the momentum swing. If you don’t have success it’s hard to keep everybody going and then big plays happen.”
To their credit, the Lakers remained gritty to the end with a pair of fourth-quarter touchdowns.
The first came on a 17-yard Lueders to Reese Cantwell hookup with 9:31 to play and was followed by a 2-yard Vainga Havili run at the 2:32 mark.
“That’s one thing that I love about these guys is that they continue to fight,” Afuvai said. “It’s been a young year. I think the first game of the year we had 26 guys that had never played on Friday, so we knew it was gonna be a lot of ‘You don’t know what you don’t know.’ And then once you start getting that experience you hope you can capitalize so that you can make some games competitive.”
