Templar football squad loses final
game of season, will face Judge
Memorial in playoffs Thursday
By James Tilson
Staff writer
Oct. 19, 2017
MANTI—In their last regular season game of the year, the Manti Templars played a hard-fought game against the Richfield Wildcats, but came up short by a score of 30-10.
The Wildcats got on the board on their first possession. Led by hard-running, star quarterback Emmet Haffen, the Wildcats used an efficient ground game to go the length of the field and score.
The Templars answered back with their balanced run-pass game. The Templars also went the length of the field and scored on a pass from Kyle King to Tanner Rasmussen to even up the score at 7.
The back-and-forth continued on Richfield’s next drive. Once again, the Templars had no answer for Haffen and the powerful Wildcat ground game. Haffen scored his second touchdown of the night to go up 14-7.
The Templars could not answer on their next drive, but got a beautiful punt from Juan Rodriguez to pin the Wildcats on their own half-yard line. But that was not enough to slow down the Wildcats. With 3:18 left in the half, they were still able to drive down the field, and with 4 seconds left, kick a field goal to make the score 17-7 at half.
Both teams seemingly were able to make the necessary adjustments to stifle each other’s offense, as neither team scored in the third quarter. But the Templars were able to gain some momentum and early in the fourth quarter kicked a 24-yard field goal to draw within one score, 17-10.
Haffen once more put Manti on its back, engineering an 80-yard mainly by running the ball himself time after time. However, he scored the next touchdown by throwing the ball to Braxton Rappleye to enlarge the Wildcats’ lead to 23-10.
The Templars could not mount an effective drive after that. Going to the pass to preserve as much time as possible, they could not make enough plays to score again.
Late in the fourth quarter, Richfield tacked on another score to put the game out of reach, 30-10.
Manti will travel this week to the Judge Memorial Bulldogs, who are No. 4 in the 3A North, on Thursday, Oct. 19, at 4pm.
