Lehi football recovers from slow start, rolls past Davis (2024)

No high school football team dreams of kicking off the season by throwing an interception in the end zone, then allowing its opponent to march down the field for a touchdown.

But when it happens, the question then becomes how will a team respond?

Lehi faced that test in its season-opener at home against Davis on Friday but passed with solid marks as the Pioneers bounced back with 35 unanswered points. The Darts got a late TD and Lehi added a field goal but the Pioneers got the 38-14 win.

Lehi head coach Ed Larson said he felt like his squad could certainly have done better early on but credited junior running back Devaughn Eka for providing a key spark.

“We knew Davis was going to give us some different looks, which they did,” Larson said. “It took us a couple of drives to figure it out as how they were running the plays. I thought we missed some shots early on that could have really changed the dynamic. But then Devaughn just took off running and when he does what he does, my gosh, it’s unbelievable. He carried us until we got things rolled a little bit, got settled down and figured things out.”

Eka scored three straight touchdowns after Davis took the lead, showing off both his speed and power on scoring runs of 62, 4 and 18 yards.

Both teams had to deal with one of those sobering moments that happen in football when a Davis lineman suffered a serious leg injury and had to be taken off the field on a stretcher to the ambulance.

“What that does is it takes any momentum you had when you when you delay the game 15 minutes, and then you feel terrible for the young man,” Larson said. “For the players, there’s always self-introspection that it could’ve been them. The mental game has got to get back to be able to get back to freewheeling a little bit. But that’s tough. People are going to say that’s the game and yeah, it’s part of the game — but also it’s not. You never want to see that. You never want to have that happen and I feel badly for that young man.”

The teams recovered from those sobering moments and although Lehi was in front, Larson knew Davis was close enough to be very dangerous.

The Pioneers failed to convert on a fourth down late in the first half and the Darts had a chance to get some momentum before the break. The Lehi defense, however, got a stop and gave its offense another opportunity.

“Fortune was good for us,” Larson said. “We got ourselves down to the 4-yard line with 3.9 seconds left and we were going to kick a field goal, but they jumped offsides. When it moved to the 2-yard line, we decided to go for it.”

Pioneer senior quarterback Jett Niu calmly fired a strike to senior wide receiver Mays Madsen in the front corner of the end zone to increase Lehi’s lead.

“I thought that play right before half was like a dagger,” Larson said. “If you go in at halftime and Davis scores one, it’s a one-score game. Instead we were up by 21.”

Niu and Madsen added another 2-yard touchdown connection early in the third quarter, but then neither team was able to do much until midway through the final frame.

Davis narrowed the gap a little on a 2-yard TD toss of its own from quarterback Bode Sparrow to Tradon Bessinger, but a 46-yard field goal from Pioneer senior kicker Gavin Fenn ensured there would be no wild comeback.

Although Lehi got the win, Larson said his players and coaches know there are a lot of things to work on.

“I think the next step is that we as a coaching staff look at what we can do so we continue to play faster,” Larson said. “If we have too much in, we’re not playing fast enough. That’s a lot on us. We’ll watch the film and have to ask ourselves if we need to pare it down so our kids can play faster at a faster tempo. I think that’s the biggest thing we have to do as coaches.”

Lehi (1-0) next plays at Desert Hills on Friday, Aug. 23, at 7 p.m.

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