High school football: West Jordan celebrates wildly after earning long-awaited region championship trophy

WEST JORDAN — The West Jordan High School trophy case stands on both sides of the hall outside the school’s gym, and ever since Ron Halbert began coaching football there, he has felt the area set aside for football trophies has had too much open space.

The Jaguars added another piece to that cabinet Friday night after Riley Warner threw three touchdown passes in a 31-10 Region 4 win over Taylorsville.

With the victory, West Jordan improved to 6-4 overall and 5-0 in region, capturing its first region crown this century, a fact Halbert and his team spent nearly an hour afterward celebrating on the school’s home field.

“I was here (as an assistant) the last time we won region, and it feels so good to be with the kids for this one,” he said. “Ever since I got this job, we’ve been working for this moment. Now we just want to feel like we deserve to be here and start winning (6A) playoff games.”

The Jaguars started the season slowly but blew through their region schedule, outscoring five opponents by an average of 32-9. Halbert said the last week of practice was intense and emotional for the players, and it continued throughout this cold, breezy night.

Taylorsville opened the scoring with a 24-yard field goal by Michael Scardina, but the Warriors’ offense was blanked the rest of the way. Taylorsville added a touchdown late in the third quarter but that came on an 85-yard kickoff return by Dereon Walton.

In between, the Jaguars accrued over 200 yards rushing. Cody Johnson accounted for 112 of those, and Nia Iaopo used his athleticism to run 28 yards for a touchdown on a reverse and later added a 74-yard reception when he outjumped a Taylorsville defender on a long pass, regained his footing and sprinted the rest of the way for a touchdown.

Giovanni Polanco also had a good night, rushing for 61 yards on 11 carries and was on the receiving end of a 42-yard touchdown throw from Warner that put the game away early in the fourth quarter.

For West Jordan, though, the best part of the night were the festivities that began when the clock ran out, starting when Halbert was doused with a Gatorade bath, a rare event in the school’s history.

Halbert, who has been in the coaching business for 37 years, was an assistant at West Jordan when the team won its last undisputed region championship in 1994. The Jaguars were co-champs in 1999, and after stints at two other Wasatch Front schools, he returned four years ago at the Jaguars’ helm and has rebuilt the program with a .500 season or better each year.

The Jaguars have won 43% of their games in schools history. They were favored to capture the crown last season but finished in third place and Halbert felt this year had a lot of promise with 16 returning starters.

“We are all very excited to see how far the program has come and we were hustling all over the field,” he said. “We were perhaps too aggressive at times (recording six personal foul calls) but I’d rather coach them to throttle back than to work harder.

“This is a big step for us. We’ll see where it leads.”