For a full game recap of Highland 51-6 victory over Idaho Falls, click here.
And for a photo gallery of the game, click here.
Idaho Falls swayed as a group, arm in arm, before sprinting on to the field for a pivotal district matchup of two 5A unbeatens.
The Tigers carried a sledgehammer painted orange, a gimmick, a symbol of their attitude and physical nature of the football team from an hour up north.
But the Highland Rams brought the boom.
To write that Highland whipped Idaho Falls 51-6 doesn’t make the issue clear enough.
The Rams whipped a Tigers squad that strutted into Pocatello confident, ego boosted by their perfect 7-0 record and an opportunity to claim the postseason’s No. 1 seed from the 5A 5-6 District.
AJ Martin, Idaho Falls senior quarterback, had directed the Tigers’ offense to 44 points a game. With the exception of a slight misstep against Hillcrest, Martin and his slew of speedy receivers hadn’t scored less than 40 points in a single contest.
So it had to be, with 5:33 left in the second quarter, that Martin’s 80-yard bomb to Dakota Baker was the kick start to Idaho Falls dynamic, explosive offense.
Wrong.
Dead wrong.
It only managed to stem the rout.
Highland turned three first-half interceptions into 20 points, led 30-6 by the break and in the end, that sledgehammer should have been ceremoniously painted black, white and red.
“If we can turn turnovers into points, it puts a lot more pressure on the other team,” said Highland head coach Gino Mariani, “and it makes us go. We get into a rhythm. I love our ability to create turnovers, and that was big tonight.”
The Rams ripped off 51 points — six of those courtesy of a Greg Gwinn 98-yard kickoff return — with 522 total yards of offense, but Highland’s defense — constantly, perpetually overlooked and underappreciated, admittedly by me — turned out as the star.
Idaho Falls plays offense like it’s late. When they’re rolling, the Tigers can run a play every 15 seconds and they’ll alternate between the pass and run, run and pass. Martin will throw short to a wide-receiver screen or deep to a corner route.
And if a defense does manage to corral IF receivers, Martin can scramble away from pressure and extend drives with his feet.
Well, at least he could against other Tiger opponents.
Friday night in Holt Arena, where both sides were open to fans and Idaho Falls arrived in a big group, Highland bottled up Martin like no other team has this season. The defense sucked the life from the Tigers and their fans.
“If we could contain the quarterback, we knew we could shut down their offense,” said junior linebacker Kyler Manu, who snagged an interception right before the first-half whistle.
When Martin did escape the pocket, he paid for it.
“We knew that if we got a couple hits on him he’d be a little more scared to roll out of that pocket,” Manu said.
Who knows if the Rams had him scared, but Martin tossed three times as many interceptions as touchdowns, and Highland dropped as many picks as it managed to hold on to.
The dropped interceptions is one of the few areas Highland coaches can gripe. Quarterback Tommy Jewell, efficient as ever, threw for 232 yards on 18 passing attempts. Running back Thad Hansen cranked out 145 yards on 18 carries.
And Highland took a 24-point halftime lead and only poured it on from there, outscoring the Tigers by 21 in the second half.
Let’s wrap up the game with one story.
On senior night, big left tackle Bo Burrup, all 6-foot-5, 230 pounds of him, dealt with cheap shots from Idaho Falls the entire game.
So a run play to the left side, he flattened an IF defender. In football terms, it’s called a pancake. He smothered him, laid right on top and let that Tiger feel his entire weight.
That was retribution. And when the whistle blew, Burrup got right up and walked back to the huddle.
“I did it clean,” he said. “... It’s the best thing in football. I love it. Getting the pancake. It’s what you go for.”
Seems fair to say that 51-6 is sort of like a pancake, too.
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