High school football: Brighton linebacker Beau La Fleur leads Bengals past Provo in season opener

Brighton took advantage of a mistake prone Provo team Friday night in Utah County, earning a 34-14 victory over the Bulldogs to begin the 2024 season.

The Bengals forced Provo to commit four turnovers in the second half of the contest, finding an answer every time the Bulldogs looked to change the momentum of the game.

“I thought the kids played really hard,” Brighton coach Casey Sutera said. “I was proud of them, and you could see the work they put in the offseason showed up.”

Senior linebacker Beau La Fleur led the charge for the Bengals, ending the night with a pair of timely pick-sixes, keeping Provo’s successes short lived and followed by frustration.

“It doesn’t surprise me that he had two pick sixes,” Sutera said. “He’s a stud; great worker; great weight room guy. (He) does track and is really successful in that.”

That success on the track transferred to the football field Friday night for La Fleur. The senior hurdler grabbed his first interception early in the third quarter on a Bulldogs drive that saw Provo inch its way into Brighton territory, threatening to cut the visitors’ lead to one score.

La Fleur had another plan in mind, swinging the score the other way when he took a tipped ball to the end zone, extending his team’s advantage to 20.

“In the moment when I caught that, track was all I was thinking about,” La Fleur said. “I was just like, ‘Keep my knees up, keep running.’ I was thinking of maybe hurdling that kid. … I was just trying to stay up. I thought I was just going to crumple over, fall over, pass out, but I stayed up somehow.”

La Fleur remained upright until the end of the play when he leaped his way into the end zone, immediately changing the feel of the game by regaining momentum for the Bengals.

But La Fleur’s career night almost didn’t happen, had it not been for a conversation he had with his coach last season at a time when he was playing running back.

“At the end of my junior year, I was just kind of like, ‘Coach, can I start playing some defense? Offense is getting a little boring. I can’t hit enough people,’” La Fleur recalled.

The change couldn’t have gone better through Week 1.

“Now I can hit kids all I want. It’s a great time,” La Fleur said.

Brighton’s whole team had a great time Friday, taking control of the game from the beginning, jumping out to a 10-0 lead after one quarter of play before Provo finally got its offense going in the second.

The Bulldogs got on the board with just over six minutes to go before halftime, but the Bengals responded by scoring 10 points to close out the half and the clock expired on a promising Bulldog drive before the break.

Ultimately, Brighton held Provo scoreless until late in the fourth despite multiple Bulldog drives starting strong before stalling out.

La Fleur put the nail in the coffin when he scored his second defensive touchdown with under two minutes to play, again pushing the Bengals’ lead to three scores.

“I told (my team) this week, ‘We’ve done a really good job with our offseason,’” Sutera said. “I told them, ‘This is a reward.’”

The two teams will play their second games of the season next Friday when Provo remains home to play Olympus while Brighton meets Syracuse in another road matchup.

The games will both kick off at 7 p.m.