High school football: Davis makes goal-line stand in thrilling victory over Weber

PLEASANT VIEW— All eyes were on Tradon Bessinger, the 3-star Davis junior quarterback, as the Darts came into hostile territory for a high stakes Region 1 matchup against rival Weber.
After everything he could do, however, Davis ultimately needed two other heroes: its goal-line defense, and the seldom-discussed kicker.
Davis kicker Finn Garff made a 50-yard field goal late in the fourth quarter, forcing the Warriors to need a touchdown and 2-point conversion to force overtime. When Weber ultimately got in the end zone, the Darts claimed victory with defense, breaking up the would-be 2-point conversion pass to seal the win, 39-37, in a Homecoming game that was thrilling from start to finish.
With the win, Davis moves to 5-1 on the season and looks like arguably the best team in the state north of Salt Lake County.
“The message all week was ‘Deliver,’” Davis coach Scott Peery said. “We told our guys all week that we’re going to deliver on what we’re all about. We came on the fortunate of getting the job done.”
Bessinger engineered Davis’ offense in a shootout first half, throwing for three touchdowns. He now has 27 TDs on the year with just two interceptions.
“Shoot, he’s a 5-star in my book,” Peery said. “He makes coaches look good. He extends plays, makes plays and he’s got great weapons around him, an O-line that’s underappreciated sometimes, and they get the job done for us.”
The Darts didn’t see a third down in the first drive of the game as Bessinger led an 8-play, 80-yard drive. Just as impressive was the fact that he was the one to throw the key block on a tricky reverse run by Tyson Baggett, who scored from 13-yards out to give Davis its first lead of the game.
Weber’s offense took the field heralding the return of senior quarterback Crew Cacciacarne, who entered his first game of the season after rehabbing from an ACL tear during spring training.
Cacciacarne engineered a key trick play on a reverse to hit a wide-open Tyler Payne, who was downed at the 1 when a defender caught up. The Warriors scored two plays later on the back of their high-usage running back, Dyson Parker.
Parker led the Weber offense and took much of the load off his returning QB. The star back finished with three rushing TDs and carried the ball for more than half of Weber’s plays.
Davis’s offense only got faster and deadlier as the game went on, but Weber forced a field goal from 31 yards as Davis retook the lead, 10-7.
The next drive, the Darts defense came up huge with a tip drill interception of Cacciacarne by Bode Sparrow, who returned the pick to Weber’s 15-yard line.
Two plays later, Bessinger found Baggett for the receiver’s second TD on a slant to the corner of the end zone.
Weber continued to rely heavily on Parker throughout the first half, and as Davis’ defense gave, it also took away. After holding strong on third down in the red zone in the first half, the Darts committed an undisciplined neutral-zone infraction to gift Weber a first down at their own 4-yard line.
Parker scored again for the Warriors on the next play.
To further gas up the Warriors, the defense forced Bessinger into a bad throw and got a deflection which landed right in the arms of (who else?) Parker. It was just the second interception of Bessinger’s season.
Late in the half, after a short field goal by Weber gave the Warriors the 24-23 lead, Davis had just 1:27 to do something about its deficit. Bessinger and the offense exploded for a lightning-quick 80-yard drive. From eight yards out, Bessinger overthrew Baggett in the end zone, but the ball landed in Easton Frasure’s hands to give the Darts the lead back, 29-24.
After halftime, it was a whole different game as the shootout ground to a halt. Zero points were scored in the third quarter, and a zero-punt game to that point featured five punts and only one first down.
“Weber does a great job…we knew they’d make great adjustments in the second half,” Peery said. “It just came down to who was going to make another play.”
Davis finally broke the ice with a first down by Baggett, which helped fuel a touchdown drive capped by a 2-yard TD by Owen Talbot.
Desperately needing to answer in the fourth quarter, Weber drove past midfield and got its wish with an impressive 28-yard catch hauled in over his defender by Tyson Higgs from Cacciacarne.
Weber’s defense came up big with a third-down stop in its own territory with 6:18 to go, but that’s when Garff came up big, splitting the uprights from 50 yards out.
“I just knew I had to make it,” Garff said. “I knew it would come down to a field goal, and I just knew I had to make it.”
Weber got the ball back in TD-or-bust mode, and the slow drive finally reached fruition on a pass play form Cacciarne to Payne, who dodged multiple defenders to roll into the end zone.
The touchdown wasn’t enough, though, as the conversion was long-awaited and expected by the Darts. Surprisingly not going to Parker for the 2-yard carry, Cacciacarne took a shot on a shallow slant, but it was broken up to give Davis the win.
Weber dropped to 4-2, its only losses coming to rivals Davis and Roy.
The Darts will stay on the road next Friday to take on Fremont. The Warriors will stay at home to host Syracuse.