Wasatch wins Midnight Madness

Photos courtesy of Scoot MaGee

While most sane people slept late Friday night and early Saturday morning, 13 high school football teams scrimmaged into the wee hours at the 19th annual Midnight Madness Tournament at the Deseret Peak Complex in Tooele.

Class 3A’s Wasatch was the surprise winner of the 7-on-7 tournament as it knocked off Northridge, Mountain Crest and Woods Cross en route to the title. The championship game ended roughly at 2:30 a.m., over eight hours after the tournament got underway.

I was there for a good chunk of the evening, and kudos definitely go out to tournament organizer Kevin Butler and the countless Stansbury High School supporters who put on such a well-run event. It’s not their fault that a Rocky Mountain Power breaker blew out knocking lights out on a third of the fields just before midgnight.

Every coach I talked to raved about the event and said they’d be back for the 20th anniversary next year.

While the skill position kids played well past midnight, the linemen had it much easier as they swam in the Deseret Peak Complex swimming pool all night. In fact, at times there was more cheering coming from the pool when a 300 pounder did a belly flop off the diving board than when Mountain Crest’s Alex Kuresa threw one of his 30-plus touchdowns.

Here are the scores from the seeded single-elimination tournament. The scores for the pool play are listed below.

First Round
Wasatch 23, Box Elder 0
Skyline 16, Manti 12
Mountain Crest 37, Taylorsville 9
Cyprus 20, Lehi White 0
Olympus 17, Stansbury 1
Pleasant Grove 12, Lehi Purple 8

Quarterfinals
Wasatch 16, Northridge 9
Mountain Crest 27, Skyline 6
Cyprus 13, Olympus 12
Woods Cross 28, Pleasant Grove 7

Semifinals
Wasatch 20, Mountain Crest 13
Woods Cross def. Cyprus

Championship
Wasatch 23, Woods Cross 9

6 p.m. games
Mountain Crest 38, Woods Cross 38
Northridge 36, Taylorsville 7
Pleasant Grove 18, Wasatch 12
Lehi Purple 25, Stansbury 15
Skyline 31, Lehi White 21
Cyprus 30, Box Elder 27

6:45 p.m. games
Woods Cross 32, Pleasant Grove 26
Northridge 15, Manti 13
Skyline 24, Wasatch 15
Stansbury 26, Taylorsville 9
Olympus 28, Lehi White 13
Box Elder 39, Lehi Purple 22

7:30 p.m. games
Mountain Crest 43, Olympus 30
Northridge 37, Cyprus 20
Pleasant Grove 31, Lehi White 24
Box Elder 28, Stansbury 20
Wasatch 25, Woods Cross 24
Taylorsville 29, Manti 28

8:30 p.m. games
Mountain Crest 47, Skyline 26
Manti 23, Lehi Purple 21
Wasatch 24, Olympus 19
Northridge 26, Box Elder 0
Woods Cross 41, Lehi White 7
Cyprus 23, Taylorsville 13

9:15 p.m. games
Mountain Crest 35, Lehi White 7
Northridge 29, Lehi Purple 24
Olympus 23, Pleasant Grove 15
Cyprus 15, Stansbury 6
Woods Cross 28, Skyline 18
Manti 31, Box Elder 30

10 p.m. games
Mountain Crest 39, Wasatch 17
Taylorsville 28, Lehi Purple 26
Woods Cross 41, Olympus 27
Northridge 25, Stansbury 14
Pleasant Grove 27, Skyline 18
Cyprus 21, Manti 1

10:45 p.m. games
Mountain Crest 35, Pleasant Grove 14
Box Elder 33, Taylorsville 15
Olympus 23, Skyline 20
Manti 24, Stansbury 7
Wasatch 34, Lehi White 1
Lehi Purple 24, Cyprus 1

Earlier in the evening before the big guys flocked to the pool, there was a lineman challenge. In the individual events there was a bench press, tire pull, tire flip, obstacle course and sand load. For the team events there was a sled push and a farmers walk.

Stansbury won the competition with 109 points, followed by Pleasant Grove (74) and Mountain Crest (54). Stansbury’s Soni Angilau won four of the five individual events.