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West Valley City Journal

A wrap up on fall high school sports

Dec 08, 2016 03:44PM ● By Greg James

The Hunter High School cross country team had a successful season under head coach Chelsea McWain. (Kolbie James/Hunter yearbook)

By Greg James | [email protected]


West Valley area high schools have capped off their competitive fall sports seasons. 

Football

Hunter High School advanced into the state playoffs with a crazy three-way playoff game victory over Granger and Layton. The Wolverines held off both sets of Lancers in the half-games with stifling defense. 

Hunter senior Ty Carlson rumbled  12 yards into the end zone with 12 seconds remaining for the initial touchdown for the Wolverines. The score secured a 6-0 victory for Hunter.

Granger attempted to advance to the state playoffs for the first time since 2012. 

At that point the three-way playoff game was not over yet for the Wolverines. The three-way tiebreaker for Region 2 is a play-in game. By coin flip two teams play the first half with the winner advancing to play the remaining team in the second half. The winner would advance to the state playoff.

The Hunter-Layton second half proved to be just as low scoring. Hunter’s defense held the Lancers out of the end zone and came out on top 11-5. Their reward — a first round matchup against Bingham, the top rated team in the state.

“Bring it on,” said Wolverines head coach Scott Henderson said.

On Oct. 29 the Wolverines season ended with a 49-9 loss to the Miners.

Cross Country

Hunter and Granger both placed fifth and sixth in the Region 2 cross country championships.  

Hunter’s top boys finisher was Joseph Short (31), its girls top finisher was Natalia Warren (45). Granger’s top boys finisher was sophomore Ben Hall (47) and its girls was Sarah Reynolds (24).

The Cyprus boys team placed sixth overall in Region 6, its girls team placed seventh. Juniors Paul Hathaway and Hailey Sherman were the team’s top region qualifiers.

Cyprus senior Juan Rodriguez received an academic all-state award by the Utah High School Activities Association. He maintained a 4.0 cumulative grade point average and was a contributing member of the varsity team.

Tennis

Hunter sophomore Hailey Wicomb placed fourth in No. 3 singles at the Region 2 championship. She was the only West Valley player to advance to the state tournament. She lost in the first round 6-0, 6-0 to Lexi Dean from Northridge.

Granger senior Elise Fulton was named to the academic all-state team. She was recognized for her academic and athletic performance.

Volleyball

Despite encouraging results early in the season Granger, Cyprus and Hunter all missed advancing to the state volleyball tournament. 

Cyprus failed to win a match the entire season. They only won two sets, one against Grantsville in the Hunter sectional tournament and one in region against Highland. Pirate senior Courtney Zamora was named to the academic all-state team.

Hunter finished sixth in Region 2 and Granger was right behind them in seventh place. Both schools played underclassmen most of the season and expect the experience to help them become better teams in the future.

Soccer

The girls soccer teams finished at the bottom of their regions. Granger won two games all season, one more than Hunter and two more than Cyprus. 

The Wolverines and Lancers tied twice this season 0-0 and 2-2. Hunter also tied Cyprus 2-2 in preseason play. Granger and Cyprus did not play each other this season. 

“We have a great bunch of girls and they do not get much credit for how good they are. We play in a very tough region and area,” Hunter head coach Brett Solberg said.

West Valley teams now begin to prepare for winter sports including basketball, drill team, swimming and wrestling.