Herriman • The No. 1 boys lacrosse team stayed on top as Corner Canyon took down American Fork 15-10 in the 6A State Championship game on Friday.
Corner Canyon charged out of the gates in the championship game, Jon King notched two goals in the first two minutes of the game while Blaze Degracie grabbed one of his own. The Chargers had jumped to a 3-0 lead with 10 minutes left in the first quarter. Corner Canyon asserted their dominance and American Fork just could not come up with a stop. Degracie grabbed his second goal at the 8:36 mark.
Camden Oswald finally got American Fork on the board at the 7:41 mark but it was still a 4-1 game.
Corner Canyon was fast to respond as Trace White extended the lead to 5-1. Corner Canyon goalie Ayden Santi had a key stop which he dumped off to Jack Dalley. Dalley went untouched to the net and scored the Chargers’ sixth goal of the night.
American Fork had some promising possessions as the quarter went on but wasn’t able to capitalize, leading to a three-minute scoring drought for both teams. Mason Quick of Corner Canyon broke the drought with his first goal of the night.
Jacob Osborn extended the CCHS lead around the 2 minute mark but Jon King scored the final goal of the quarter in heavy traffic leading to a 9-1 score.
“We knew we were gonna come out and just go as hard as we can as soon as we got out there. We got like three or four quick goals and we started building off that, a little bit slower, but you know, what are you going to do about it?” Jon King said postgame. “The way we look at it is we go out there and punch everyone in the mouth every single time we step on the field. And that’s what we did for the first five minutes of the game. We put our foot on their throat, and then we just ran up the score.”
American Fork dominated the opening minutes of the second quarter and it took until the 7:54 mark for all that work to pay off as Tate Fisher nabbed a goal for the Cavemen. Fisher nabbed his next goal shortly after his first to slimly close the lead.
Corner Canyon had a messy second quarter with missed passes and some poor execution.
Jacob Osborn scored the only goal for the Chargers in the quarter, leading to a 10-3 score at halftime.
American Fork was the first to get on the scoreboard in the second half as Noah Fisher scored at the 11:25 mark. Both teams started to get physical as the quarter went on. Luke Squire of American Fork was able to notch a while Corner Canyon was playing with a man down.
Noah Fisher scored his second goal of the night at the 8:54 mark and the roles were quickly reversed between the two teams. The hot handed Corner Canyon team that dominated the first quarter was replaced by an American Fork team that would not be denied.
Tate Fisher scored his third goal of the game and suddenly the game was within three for the Cavemen. Blaze Degracie extended the Chargers lead back to four at the 5:27 mark but Quick closed the lead back to three with an impressive behind-the-back shot. Quick scored for Corner Canyon with under a minute to go in the quarter. Heading into the final frame the Chargers had a 12-8 lead over the Cavemen.
Quick grabbed his fourth goal of the game with about nine minutes left in the game extending the lead. A few moments later Dylan Carlsen found the back of the net again for the Chargers.
Noah Fisher got things back on track for American Fork with a much needed goal at the 5 minute mark making it a 14-9 game.
Jacob Osborn notched another goal for Corner Canyon around the 4 minute mark but American Fork wasn’t done. Luke Squire scored the final goal for AFHS with 3 minutes left in the game.
Corner Canyon ran the clock down to secure the 15-10 victory.
Corner Canyon head coach Aaron Ika says that a lot of the culture of his team is based on the senior class, some of who will be playing at the college level at this time next year.
“The thing about these seniors is it was never about them. You come to our practice, you see the seniors moving cages. You see the seniors picking up balls, just like a freshman. You go to other teams and the freshmen are doing all the grunt work. Our guys to their credit they’ve been doing all the hard work all year,” Ika said.
In the first game of the day, Green Canyon beat rival Sky View in overtime to win the 4A championship by a score of 9-8. Park City was able to clinch the 5A title after notching two goals in the last 30 seconds of play to beat Olympus 10-9. Olympus had a chance to tie but was unable to find the net to send the game into overtime.
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