High school football: Bountiful avoids collapse, beats Olympus on Landon Zayas game-winning field goal

Box score

Twice Olympus’ coaches tried to ice Bountiful kicker Landon Zayas with consecutive timeouts just prior to his last-second field goal attempt. Each time, Bountiful coach Jason Freckleton could hear Zayas muttering to his kicking coach, “oh, it don’t matter. It don’t matter.”

With Olympus finally out of timeouts, the senior Zayas calmly split the uprights on his 25-yard field goal with two seconds remaining as Bountiful avoided a big fourth-quarter collapse to squeak past Olympus 25-22.

“He’s always kind of making you laugh a little and bouncing around and just has that happy-go-lucky energy. He is a goofster. But he’s worked really hard and prepared himself for this moment, really proud of Landon,” said Freckleton.

Bountiful led 22-0 after three quarters, but led by back-up quarterback Max Rice the Titans made a furious comeback as Rice tossed three TDs in the fourth quarter to tie the game 22-22 with 3:07 remaining.

“They made some plays, you gotta tip your hat, they caught us a couple times over the top,” said Freckleton.

After sputtering in the fourth quarter on its prior two drives — which gave Olympus the lifelines it needed — Bountiful’s offense responded late in a big, big way.

Clutch completions from quarterback Emerson Geilman and timely runs from Zeke Murdock helped the Redhawks march quickly down field to set up Zayas with great field position for the chip shot game winner. The most important play of the drive came on third and 13 as Geilman delivered a 36-yard catch and run down the middle of the field to Connor Clark with just over a minute remaining.

“We practice this situation all year, we always practice the two minute. We’re built for this, and we believe in them,” said Freckleton, who added high praise for the clutch play of his QB. “Give that kid one more shot and he’s going to make it count. He’s very dynamic and so coachable. He put the ball on the money all night. Hats off to him.”

With the win, Bountiful improves to 3-0 on the season while Olympus drops to 1-2. For Bountiful, the win also avenged last year’s loss to Olympus by a field goal as time expired.

For most of the night on Thursday, led by its defense Bountiful looked every bit the part of the No. 3 team in 5A in the first half as it jumped out to a 19-0 lead by holding the Titans to just 69 yards of total offense.

Bountiful struck first on a Zayas 22-yard field goal midway through the first quarter, and then extended the lead to 5-0 later in the quarter on a safety after a snap sailed over the punter’s head.

In the second quarter, Bountiful stretched the lead to 12-0 on a Geilman 10-yard TD run, and then he capped the first half scoring on a 10-yard TD pass to Siaki Fekitoa for the 19-0 halftime lead.

Twice in the third quarter Bountiful had a chance to effectively bury Olympus as it marched inside the 15 yard line on consecutive drives. It only came away with just three combined points on those drives which kept it a three-possession game.

Olympus finally got on the scoreboard on the first play of the quarter as Caden Lloyd got behind the defense to haul in a 49-yard TD pass cutting the lead to 22-7 with 11:52 remaining in the game.

Three minutes later, Olympus was back in the end zone as Rice hit a wide open Tommy Nelson on a 26-yard TD pass in the corner of the end zone after a blown coverage, cutting the lead to 22-14.

The two connected again with 3:08 left in the game on a fade rout into the corner of the end zone, and they hooked up again on the ensuing two-point conversion to tie the game at 22-22.

In the fourth quarter alone, Rice completed 9 of 13 passes for 161 yards and three TDS.

He never got a chance to touch the ball again though as his counterpart in red led his team on a game-winning drive to seal the win.

“Really proud of these kids for their willingness to fight until the end and play for each other and a great team win for us,” said Freckleton.