Coeur d'Alene falls to Lehi (Utah) at Rocky Mountain Rumble
REXBURG — Size matters.
Game experience helps, too.
The smaller Coeur d’Alene Vikings, playing in their season opener, fell to the Lehi (Utah) Pioneers, playing their third game of the season, 33-7 in a Rocky Mountain Rumble football matchup Saturday at Madison High’s Bobcat Stadium.
“They were a good-sized team; they were what we thought they were going to be,” Coeur d’Alene coach Shawn Amos said of Lehi. “They were a good football team, and they certainly played better than we did.”
As for a team playing its opener vs. a team playing its third game of the season …
“That’s just something we had to deal with, but we knew it was coming,” Amos said. “The kids understood that they could not make first-game mistakes, and we did. And they capitalized on those. When you have all those offsides, it makes play-calling pretty difficult. And they were good. When you play teams like that, you cannot afford to do that, and we did.”
Lehi (2-1), a 6A school in Utah’s largest classification, outgained Coeur d’Alene 410-85.
Junior quarterback Jackson Brousseau passed for 311 yards (on 20-of-26 passing) and three touchdowns for the Pioneers. In a stretch starting in the second quarter, Lehi scored on five of six possessions (four touchdowns and a field goal) to build a 30-0 lead late in the third quarter.
Coeur d’Alene tried to counter Lehi’s passing game with pressure, particularly from Gunner Giulio and Cameren Cope.
“We were pretty impressed with that quarterback; he sat in there and took a lot of hits, but he delivered the ball,” Amos said. “And the timing of their pass game was pretty impressive. They were pretty polished; the timing was great. He (Brousseau) stood in there and took the hits and delivered the ball.”
Coeur d’Alene got on the board in the fourth quarter when senior Jacob Wuolle intercepted a pass deflected off the hands of a Lehi receiver and returned it 27 yards for a touchdown.
Coeur d’Alene finished with minus 18 yards rushing, a number impacted by three sacks and an errant snap.
“They were really hard to run the ball against; we knew that going in that they were going to be hard to run against,” Amos said. “No one’s run it against them.”
Senior Brayden Bengtson, in his first varsity start, was 17 of 33 for 103 yards and two interceptions for Coeur d’Alene. Tanner Langley had five receptions for 32 yards.
“We’re going to learn a lot from it,” Amos said of the loss. “If we don’t learn from this game, we’re in trouble. There’s a lot to learn, and we feel good that our kids are going to respond in the right way. But we’ll see.”
Coeur d’Alene was penalized 13 times for 105 yards, including 6 for 60 yards in the second quarter.
Amos noted it was the first game for his team, “But that’s still inexcusable,” he said of the penalties. “It shouldn’t take us till game two to not jump offsides all the time.”
Amos said Viking senior Alex Raudebaugh, who was shaken up on the second-half kickoff and remained on the field for several minutes before being carted off on an ATV, suffered a concussion, but did not appear to have a neck injury.
Coeur d’Alene plays at Sandpoint (1-0) on Friday night.
Lehi 0 17 13 3 — 33
Coeur d’Alene 0 0 0 7 — 7
Second quarter
Lehi — Helaman Ofahengaue 3 run (Zane Goodrich kick), 7:12
Lehi — Jaxon Christensen 14 pass from Jackson Brousseau (Goodrich kick)
Lehi — FG Goodrich 30, 1:25
Third quarter
Lehi — Steele Cooper 66 pass from Brousseau (Goodrich kick), 11:01
Lehi — Jace Megary 13 pass from Brousseau (PAT failed)
Fourth quarter
Cd’A — Jacob Wuolle 27 interception return (Ethan Johnson kick)
Lehi — FG Goodrich 37
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING — Lehi, Gonzalez 15-57, Brousseau 1-(minus 9), Ofahengaue 1-3, Mills 3-42, Allen 2-11, Liu 2-(minus 6). Cd’A, Giulio 4-3, Collier 5-11, Bengtson 4-(minus 20), Elliott 1-0, Team 1-(minus 12).
PASSING — Lehi, Brousseau 20-26-0-311, Liu 2-5-1-1. Cd’A, Bengtson 17-33-2-103.
RECEIVING — Lehi, Cooper 2-81, Christensen 5-56, Bingham 3-5, Megary 4-36, Felix 1-5, Moore 2-65, Gonzalez 3-29, Seat 1-36, Mills 1-(minus 1). Cd’A, Langley 5-32, Giulio 4-23, Wuolle 1-15, Griffin 2-14, D’Agostino 1-(minus 4), Collier 1-(minus 3), Short 1-15, Petree 1-5, Entzi 1-6.