Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
SALEM — The Uintah football team hasn't had a winning season since 2008.
But after Friday night's 4A Region 8 battle against Salem Hills, the Utes look well on their way to reaching the elusive benchmark.
Uintah relied on the toughness of its running game and defense to build a 18-7 lead late into the fourth quarter in front of a packed Salem Hills homecoming crowd.
The Skyhawks (3-4) nearly mounted the deficit, using a late touchdown and a defensive stop, but a 55-yard field goal attempt broke left as time expired, and the Utes held on for an 18-15 win to improve to 5-2 on the season.
The outcome solidifies Uintah's highest win total since 2021 and provides payback for a 44-7 beatdown Salem Hills handed the Utes last season in Vernal.
"We've been underestimated by every team. ... So we came in here with confidence and showed them what we're about," Uintah quarterback JD Pickup said.
The Utes found success on offense doing what it knows best: running the football. Pickup and running backs Kaysten Ussery and Dace O'bagy combined for over 200 yards on the ground.
The most impressive drive came in the third quarter, when Uintah drove the length of the field on 15 consecutive running plays, capped by a 15-yard touchdown scamper down the sideline from Pickup to build the 18-7 lead.
"We'd been setting the end up the whole game," Pickup said of the score, which proved the game-winner. "Just handing it off, handing it off, handing it off, then I saw my opportunity and pulled it. (The defender) chased the running back, so I had a free go at the end zone."
Uintah's other touchdowns were set up by the run, also. On its opening drive, the Utes ran the ball 13 times, then reached the end zone with a 10-yard pass from Pickup to O'bagy. In the second quarter, when Salem Hills expected the ground game, Pickup found a wide open Ussery for a 73-yard pass to the goaline.
Ussery punched in a 1-yard touchdown the following play.
"Obviously, we run the ball quite a bit, but we can also throw the ball," Uintah coach Francisco Llanos said. "You have to run the ball until they stop you. And they did a good job of doing that, and that's why we kind of had to open it up a little bit."
The Utes' defense also did its part, getting a second quarter interception in its own territory and a critical red zone stop in the third quarter to force a missed field goal. Pickup called the showing "the best our defense has played all year."
But a youthful Salem Hills side — which returned just four starters from last year's 8-4 team — refused to go away.
Skyhawks quarterback Jedi Nelson, who finished the second half 14-of-23 passing with 130 passing yards, steered Salem Hills downfield in the waning moments and scored on a 6-yard rush with 2:27 to play.
After Salem Hills' defense forced a three-and-out, its offense got the ball back with under a minute to play and used a pass interference call and an 11-yard completion from Nelson to Grayson Wilson to get near field goal range with five seconds remaining.
The deep kick from Porter Dinkins had the distance, but barely missed the mark.
"That's a gritty football game, and that's a good football team and we're young," Salem Hills coach Jeff Higginson said. "I saw (Jedi) become resilient in that final drive, and then he got us down to get a chance in the end, and so I was proud of him. I was proud of his resilience, that's something I've been looking to see all year.
"When you look out at the field at any given time there's eight sophomores out there," Higginson continued. "What I'm seeing is guys growing in big ways."
But it was Uintah — a team that's suddenly racking up the victories — that continued to grow in the win column.
"We had to keep fighting," Llanos said. "We knew they were a good team. We knew they were one play away from being in the game, and it came down to the last play. It just says a lot about our team, and just where we're at right now."
