The Grand County High School (GCHS) football team found its offensive execution on Friday night, Aug. 23 in Moab, rebounding from a 51-0 loss to Morgan in its season opener by exploding past the Providence Hall Patriots, 42-6.
GCHS scored two touchdowns a piece in each of the first three quarters, exploiting the Providence Hall defense with long plays both on the ground and through the air. The Red Devils jumped in front 7-0 with a 19-yard touchdown strike from quarterback Bryant Troutt to tight end Trea Meyer.
After the Patriots scored for the first time in program history – they lost 41-0 to Richfield last week in their inaugural game – to pull to 7-6, Troutt found running back Brayden Cloud for a 60-yard scoring strike to pull ahead 14-6.
Troutt scored on the ground twice in the second quarter, the first time breaking free from 52 yards away, and the second a much shorter 1-yard touchdown run, to give GCHS a 28-6 halftime lead, which the Red Devils extended to the final score of 42-6 with a pair of third quarter touchdowns: an 8-yard run from Dante Wells and a 1-yard run from Brayden Troutt – Wells also went 6-for-6 kicking extra points.
Bryant Troutt went 4-for-5 passing for 197 yards and two touchdowns, hitting non-scoring passes of 83 yards to Cloud, and 54 yards to Chasee Croasmun. Bryant Troutt was also the Red Devils’ leading rusher with 13 carries for 177 yards. Brayden Troutt had two carries for 10 yards, while also leading the GCHS defense with 11 tackles. Meyer and Clynn Backus each had eight tackles for the Red Devils.
Despite the lopsided score, GCHS football coach Dennis Wells said the Patriots played much better than he expected them to.
“Providence Hall gave us a lot better of a game than we thought they would from watching the film,” he said.
Wells said the Red Devils showed a lot of improvement from week one to week two in their execution.
“We spent all week working on ourselves,” he said. “We’ve still got a lot to work on, but we executed a lot better. When you get the running game going, it opens up the pass. It’s nice to call a game where it doesn’t matter what you call, the offense is going to execute.”
Wells said that having some players heal up from injury helped GCHS against Providence Hall and will continue to help the Red Devils when they play at Union on Friday, Aug. 30 in Roosevelt.
“Brayden Troutt’s knee is a lot better” after tearing his ACL last season, Wells said. “He does good for us on defense, but he’s also getting a lot more playing time on offense, both at tight end and tailback. “And we got Jaymmin Hester back on the offensive line, which really helped, especially because we got (Meyer) off the line and back to his tight end position.”
Wells said the Red Devils and the Union Cougars are evenly matched opponents.
“I like our game plan against Union,” he said. “We’re learning what we have and what we need to do to keep getting better.”
