For the first quarter and a half against Grantsville Friday, it looked like San Juan was going to remind everyone why it was one of the most dangerous offensive teams in Utah.
Then Grantsville’s defense took over.
The Cowboys erased a 12-0 deficit by scoring 30 unanswered points, forcing seven San Juan turnovers along the way, and held on for a 30-20 victory at Snow College.
It was a game that seemed to change every few minutes. San Juan came out firing as quarterback Beau Yeomans opened the scoring with a 1-yard touchdown run, and later in the first quarter he found Brigg Palmer wide open for a 47-yard touchdown.
Just like that, San Juan had a 12-0 lead.
And then the Broncos stopped scoring, although it took a while for the Cowboys offense to get going as they threw two interceptions deep in San Juan territory.
But Grantsville’s defense kept giving the offense another chance.
“We left a lot of points on the board,” Grantsville coach David Millward said. “We had interceptions in the end zone. I think we had four red-zone possessions without points.”
Eventually, though, the Cowboys broke through when Carter Bell scored on a 9-yard run early in the second quarter, cutting San Juan’s lead to 12-7.
Then late in the first half, Mack Hammond intercepted Yeomans and gave Grantsville the ball at its own 42. Crew Allred immediately ripped off a 34-yard run, and then with 2.4 seconds left before halftime, Allred rolled to his left and found Ty Holm for a 24-yard touchdown.
Suddenly, the team that had trailed 12-0 was leading 13-12.
And Grantsville wasn’t done.
The Cowboys opened the second half by forcing another San Juan turnover when Palmer fumbled at the San Juan 30.
Grantsville turned that opportunity into another touchdown, with Bell punching it in from the goal line. A successful two-point conversion pushed the lead to 21-12.
Bell added another touchdown later in the quarter, this one on a 7-yard toss play, and Cache Hammond’s 37-yard field goal early in the fourth quarter made it 30-12.
That was 30 straight points for Grantsville.
San Juan finally showed some life again late in the fourth when Yeomans found Palmer for a 39-yard touchdown with 5:25 remaining and Randall Black ran in the two-point conversion to make it 30-20.
The Broncos got one more chance when they forced Grantsville to punt, but after driving deep into Cowboys territory, Yeomans threw another interception to Graeson Warren.
That was Warren’s second interception of the night and effectively ended San Juan’s final serious threat.
For Millward, the biggest thing wasn’t that his team played a perfect game. It absolutely didn’t. It was that the Cowboys kept fighting anyway.
“I’m just so proud of our kids,” Millward said. “They just battled and battled, and we made a lot of mistakes, but they just kept believing.”
Grantsville’s defense did more than just create turnovers. It swarmed San Juan throughout the night.
“They just swarm and swarm,” Millward said. “That’s what we like to say, that we just play hard-nosed football in Grantsville, and I feel like tonight, that’s what we did.”
And that’s probably the best way to describe the game. San Juan looked like the better team early, then Grantsville made play after play.
For a Grantsville team that spent much of the first half leaving points on the field, its defense made sure it would get enough chances to eventually make them count.
And when the Cowboys finally did, they didn’t stop.