High school football: Bountiful runs away with 5A semifinal over Brighton

After its Cinderella run to the state championship game last year, there were some doubts if Bountiful could do it again.
The Redhawks’ worries subsided after a convincing 24-8 win over Brighton in Friday’s 5A semifinal.
It was the 12th ever meeting between the Bengals and Redhawks, and it’s Bountiful’s first win over Brighton since a 4A quarterfinal game in 1981.
“This is a special team,” said Bountiful head coach Jason Freckleton. “Last year you make it and that was a special run, but when it ends and you miss out on winning it, you wonder, ‘Are we ever going to have this chance again?’
“Our guys wanted it. They put in all the work in the offseason, and they did a great job of not getting ahead of themselves. When we were looking ahead to this moment, we stayed in each moment as it came, and now we’re here and now we are going to go play for it again.”
Bountiful wasted no time Friday jumping out to a 7-0 lead after Siaki Fekitoa found the end zone on the Redhawks’ first scoring drive. Brighton entered the semifinal with its third-string quarterback and relied on its strong defense to carry it through the semifinal, but the early offensive breakthrough made things tough on the Bengals.
“They weren’t going to come and give it to us just because they’re on their third-string guy,” said Freckleton. “Their quarterback played hard, gave their guys opportunities and they’ve won close games all year long. We had to stick to what we do well.”
Brighton’s defense held Bountiful out of the end zone again until late in the second quarter, when Redhawks quarterback Emerson Geilman broke away for a 22-yard touchdown run to make the score 14-0.
Geilman was a strong ground option for Bountiful throughout Friday’s game and ended it with 144 yards on 16 runs.
“Brighton has a very good defense,” Geilman said. “They’ve got a lot of good athletes and they play very fundamentally sound. When I was watching film I saw they covered well, but my (offensive) line gave me great time, and we had to take what they gave us.
“That’s what makes our offense so dynamic — you can take away one thing, but you can’t take away everything.”
Brighton had a chance to score before halftime, but a touchdown run was called back on a holding call and a 32-yard field goal attempt at the end of the half was no good.
Brighton’s defense didn’t make things easy for the Bountiful offense and gave itself a fighting chance, but the Bengals offense struggled to get anything going.
In the third quarter, Bountiful’s Brock McSwain returned a punt for 62 yards and a touchdown for the 21-0 lead. With how much Brighton’s offense struggled, it effectively was the dagger for the Bengals.
The shutout was narrowly avoided as Mason Haertel found the only touchdown of the night for Brighton with two minutes left in the game.
Bountiful has a chance to win its first state championship since 2003, but it will have to go through Roy, its Region 5 rival. Bountiful beat Roy 42-35 earlier this season.
“It’s fun to play a region team in the state final and they’re a good team,” Freckleton said. “We’ll get ready for them and we need to go 1-0 this week, and that equates to a state championship, and that’s pretty dang cool.”