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PCHS football takes down Tigers 35-14

Desperately needing a win after a big loss at Judge Memorial last week, the Park City High School football team hit the road again on Thursday night for a game against winless Ogden.

Despite a lackluster second-quarter performance, the Miners were able to dominate the other three quarter to earn a 35-14 victory against the Tigers, a non-region opponent.

Park City Coach Mike Shepherd was happy to get the win, but said lapses like the one in the second quarter will hurt the Miners down the road.

"I thought we played really well early in the game," he said. "Then we got complacent and made quite a few mistakes in the second quarter and let Ogden back in the game. [At halftime] we just refocused our attention again and started executing. We went more conservative in the third quarter and got back on track. Overall, it was a good performance, but it wasn’t one of our best games."

The first quarter saw the Miners take a 14-0 lead over the Tigers, thanks to quarterback Spencer Zur’s 15-yard touchdown pass to receiver Harrison Fugate and a 39-yard pass from Spencer to his twin brother, Collin. The Miners extended their lead to 21-0 on a 17-yard run by running back Jack Root before the Tigers closed the gap to 21-14 at the intermission.

In the third quarter, Spencer Zur scored on a two-yard run and Parker Shea, normally an offensive and defensive lineman, got a carry and scored on a one-yard run to account for the game’s final points.

"We put in a power-I formation for the Judge game," Shepherd said. "I put in a dive play out of that formation specifically for [Shea]. He’s been in the trenches on both sides of the ball since he was a sophomore, so I thought it’d be nice to get him a touchdown."

Shea also made noise defensively as part of a line that had several sacks and forced an interception. Defensive end Nesta Heaps deflected a pass and completed the interception to end an Ogden drive. Shepherd said Heaps has been a valuable addition to the defense this season.

"Nesta hasn’t played football before," Shepherd said. "He’s a basketball player who decided to come out for football at the start of the year. It took him a little bit of time to acclimate himself to all the things you need to understand in football. Right now, he’s coming into his own and he had a really good game on Friday."

After having a short week of preparation to face Ogden, Park City (5-3 overall, 2-2 in 3AA) again has a quick turnaround before this week’s game at Tooele (5-3, 3-1) on Wednesday night. Shepherd said it’s not easy to prepare for such an important game so quickly, but it can’t be used as an excuse, either.

"It’s very difficult," he said. "We have to do offense, defense and special teams preparation in one day. But Tooele is in the same boat."

Shepherd said Tooele isn’t going to surprise Park City — the Miners just need to be able to execute against one of the toughest teams in 3AA.

"They’re pretty strong in what they do," he said. "They believe in their schemes, so I don’t think they’re going to deviate much from what they normally do. Offensively, they’ll run five or six plays out of the wing-T formation and that’s about it. You just have to be able to stop it. They have very good defensive and offensive lines this year — they’re a solid team."

Wednesday night’s game in Tooele is scheduled to kick off at 7 p.m.


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