Prep football: Brighton Stops Hunter

If you can stop the run, you stop the Hunter Wolverines. This sounds simple enough until you talk with the Wolverines two previous opponents; the Kearns Cougars and the Highland Rams.

Hunter's Equasi Tavo has started the season on a rampage. The senior tailback is the focal point of the Wolverine's offense and rightfully so after averaging 140.5 yards per leading up to the slugfest with the Brighton Bengals.

On paper, the game looked to be a mismatch. The Wolverines were a run-heavy team and the Bengals struggle at defending the run. The only problem for the Wolverines, Tavo was too dinged up from the following week to run effectively after hurting his ribs and proved to be too damaging to Hunter's potent attack.

While the Wolverines' offense struggled to find consistency, so did the Bengals' offense as each team engaged in a fierce defensive tug-a-war.

Brighton's Andy Jones finally got the scoring underway in the second period with a 90 yard touchdown pass to Zane Smith as Smith outran the Hunter defenders. "As soon as I caught the ball, I started losing my balance, but I recovered and I didn't think I was going to get caught from behind," said Smith.

Brighton's offense would be held in check from that point on but their defense proved to be stout as they limited the Wolverines to a lone field goal.

Hunter had an opportunity to pull ahead in the closing minutes of the game after an interception but their offense went three-and-out inside the Brighton 30 yard line. It looked as though the Bengals had the victory in hand from that point but they still needed to run a few more plays.

On the first play of Brighton's closing drive their running back fumbled the exchange with their quarterback. The ball bounced for what seemed to be an eternity down the middle of the field before the Brighton running back recovered his own fumble while dashing the Wolverines' hopes in the process as the Bengals held on for a 7-3 win.