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Two Rivalry Games in Six Days
By Stephen Vincent
Two rivalry games with major playoff implications are being played this week. And because of the upcoming UEA school break, neither game will be played on a Friday.
Dixie and Pine View tangle on Thursday, Oct. 4, and the Flyers tussle with Snow Canyon six days later on Wednesday, Oct. 10, at Walt Brooks Stadium. Both games start at 7 p.m.
In other words, in a six-day span, Dixie High School plays the two games that will determine whether the Flyers go to state.
The Flyers start with a road game at Pine View. The game serves essentially as the region championship game, as a Pine View victory, coupled with its 46-14 win over Snow Canyon on Sept. 21, ensures that the Panthers will win the 4A portion of Region 9 and go into the state tournament as the region's No. 1 seed.
The No. 1 seed would give Pine View a home game in the first two rounds of the playoffs.
The second-place finisher goes on the road to start the playoffs, while the third-place team misses out on the playoffs.
If Dixie beats the Panthers, then Snow Canyon will have a chance to throw the Region 9 race into chaos. If Dixie downs Pine View, and Snow Canyon defeats Dixie, then the three teams would finish 1-1 in region play, and then the teams' records against the three 3A schools in the region – Cedar, Canyon View and Hurricane – become the determining factor in who goes to state.
“If you look at the history of Region 9, it's pretty hard to go undefeated,” said Pine View coach Ray Hosner. “If there's a three-way tie – and there's a pretty good chance that could happen – then those 3A games become big games for us.”
Regardless of whether Dixie or Pine View wins the first game, Snow Canyon must beat Dixie to go to state.
“If we lose that game, our season's over,” said Snow Canyon coach Rick Secrist. “If we do win that Dixie game, then the 3A games become even more important now.”
Secrist doesn't see the current arrangement as being fair to the St. George schools.
“You take a team that could conceivably be 7-3 and not get in the playoffs, and then you're taking a sub-.500 team from another region, then tell me where is the justice in that,” Secrist said.
Both Hosner and Secrist agree that Dixie is a formidable foe. The Flyers' success starts with senior running back Nate Carter. In an average game this season, Carter, an all-state selection last year, rushes for 136 yards and two touchdowns.
Through the first five games, Dixie quarterback Macrae Heppler had completed 56 percent of his passes for 619 yards and three touchdowns.
“Without a doubt, Dixie has a tough team,” Hosner said. “They're big and physical, and Nate Carter is just an amazing athlete. Defensively, they just got a swarm of kids who fly around. We can't look past them. Coach (Jake) Nelson does great a job with those kids.”
Hosner said he believes his team's rivalry with Dixie is more intense than the one they have with Snow Canyon.
“Some of their kids were here at Pine View, and then they got re-zoned,” Hosner said, “so a lot of these kids are friends with each other.”
The Panthers are feeling good after knocking off Snow Canyon two weeks ago. Much of the press before that game centered on the two teams' explosive offenses, but it was Pine View's defense that really shined in that contest, limiting Snow Canyon to just 66 yards of total offense.
Pine View's Jared Worthington, in particular, had a big day, picking off a Snow Canyon pass that ruined one Warrior drive and then recovering a fumble and running into the end zone for a touchdown. Pine View coach Ray Hosner said the latter play was “the emotional change” in the game, as it helped spark a stretch in which Pine View scored four touchdowns in a 90-second span.
Hosner believes it is that defensive prowess that spurs his team's offense, as the Panthers average 47.5 points a contest.
“Our defense has created a lot of three-and-outs that gives our offense more possessions,” Hosner said. “You don't score that many points without that many possessions. You don't score 40 to 50 points per game without a good defense.”
The Panthers lost just one starter off their defense from last year, and Hosner said the returning starters are much more comfortable in their roles this season.
Hosner credits his assistants for their successes; in particular, the Panthers have two new coordinators this season: Todd Shaw on offense and Greg Croshaw on defense.
For the Warriors, Secrist believes the Pine View game revealed that the offense, which averages 37.5 points per game, wasn't as good as it was billed to be – something Secrist had suspected before that game.
“Our offense has never clicked like I wanted it to, even though we put up some big numbers,” Secrist said. “We've got to get things clicking so when we get to that Dixie game, we don't have any mental lapses.”
One thing that Secrist has changed in the wake of that loss is his platooning system. Previously, the Warriors had their players be either exclusively on defense or exclusively on offense.
Secrist believed that needed to change.
“Now we have to have our best athletes out on the field at all times,” Secrist said. “We're going to see how that works for us. We're going to see if we eliminate those little mental mistakes.”

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