Highland High matched up against West High this week. West has been struggling to get wins lately so Highland was hoping to come in and get a win for the last game of the season until playoffs. They came out and did what needed to be done winning the game by a margin of 28 points 56-28.

Highland came out strong scoring two touchdowns early in the first quarter one from junior Siope Tenifa and the other by senior Trayton Keyes. Due to an onside kick that was not recovered by Highland the momentum switched. Highland’s next offensive possessions they couldn’t find anything and were stopped multiple times. This opened up the door for West and they found the end zone twice as the first quarter was wrapping up.

This flustered Highland’s team “They just made some big plays,” said senior running back Travis Boyce. “You could tell that we were kind of shaky but we knew that if we just kept playing our game we would pull out victorious.”

Travis’s outlook helped them swing the momentum back around. In the second quarter they held the Panthers to no points and scored 21 points. Cole Peterson running for two touchdowns and throwing to Trayton Keys for the other one. This put Highland in the driver seat up by 21 points heading into halftime although they were up they had no intention of pulling up.

They came out of halftime and Boyce scored  putting them up 42-14. They added to that lead again in the third with a touchdown thrown by Peterson to Tenifa for yet another Highland touchdown. This made the led nearly insurmountable for West but they weren’t going to give up. Due to some sloppy play from Highland, they were able to score.

“It’s the big penalties the drive killing penalties, those should never happen,” Highland’s head coach Brody Benson said.

Although Highland had 14 penalties against them for 130 yards it didn’t seem to phase them too much heading into the 4th quarter. In the fourth West came out and scored. Then Highland scored just over a minute later with a huge run by Boyce to put them up 56-28. The rest of the quarter was a defensive battle and no one could finish their drive.

This is an important win for Highland especially after their disappointing loss last week. They now finish their region play with just one loss and have become the second seed in the region. They have a bye next week which will give them plenty of time to prepare to make their playoff run and go as far as they can.