Cedar Mountain defeated Red Rock Central 36-22 in the Section 2, Nine-Man Football Championship Friday at Lakeview High School to earn the trip, led by Cooper Freitag and his three touchdown carries on his 18th birthday.

“It’s special,” Freitag said. “Then to have all my teammates around me playing as hard as they did. It’s just special, so many emotions, I can’t even really describe it right now.”

Cedar Mountain head coach Dwane Jemmings, who is coaching his final year at Cedar Mountain, said a state trip was exactly what he intended to bring to the program when he started.

“I’m proud of these kids,” Jemmings said. “When I took the job over seven years ago I told them I wanted to win section championships and all that, and people looked at me funny because we’ve never had it done here… I told the kids last week we had unfinished business and they believed me. Hopefully, this isn’t the last time here.”

Left: Cedar Mountain’s Cooper Freitag takes a handoff to the outside during the Section 2 Nine-Man Championship game against Red Rock Central Friday at Lakeview High School in Cottonwood.

While the Cougar offense eventually caught fire, neither team scored in the first half, with RRC going three-and-out on the opening drive and the teams trading turnovers with an interception by RRC’s Tyler Therkilsen and a fumble recovery by Cedar Mountain’s Parker Kerkhoff.

Cedar Mountain scored first in a drive that started at their own 11, converting two fourth downs on runs by Freitag. A 20-yard completion from Carson Schiller to Lane Guggisberg set up Freitag for a 2-yard touchdown to go up 7-0.

Cedar Mountain forced another RRC three-and-out, frustrating star running back Carter Therkilsen and the Falcons’ run game.

“We game planned to stop him,” Jemmings said. “He’s a heck of a back, and we were able to stop him. The defense was prepared and we did our job. They had a couple of plays, but we made the plays when we needed to. The kids wanted it.”

Cedar Mountain was set up at RRC’s 43-yard line and went on a seven-play drive, with Brandon Pendleton setting himself with a deep connection to the 2-yard line for a quick touchdown reception. Freitag ran in the two-point conversion for a 15-0 advantage.

Staff photo by Ari Selvey Cedar Mountain’s Blake Steffl (13) intercepts a pass during the Section 2 Nine-Man Championship game against Red Rock Central Friday at Lakeview High School in Cottonwood.

On the first play of the Falcons’ next drive, quarterback Isaac Simonson was strip-sacked by Easton Csordacsics to give the Cougars another short field. Three plays later, Freitag punched the ball in from 3 yards out for his second touchdown of the day and a 22-0 lead for Cedar Mountain with 1:17 left in the half.

RRC made it inside the red zone on their drive, set up by a 19-yard completion to Jaden Lang, but the drive was stopped short as a completion to Quintyn Vold was short of the marker on fourth down, stalling the drive with seven seconds to go.

Unlike the first half, Cedar Mountain wasted no time in scoring to open the second period, with Schiller taking a deep shot to Guggisberg on the first play. Guggisberg took it the rest of the 58 yards to the house to put the Cougars up 29-0, and the Falcons offense continued to flounder as Pendleton intercepted RRC’s first play of its next drive to give the ball right back to the Cougars.

“We told them it was a 0-0 ballgame,” Jemmings said. “It was 22-0 at halftime, but Red Rock’s a heck of a team that can score fast, Therkilsen’s a great back. But we did what we needed to do, we were able to shut them down and make them pass and it worked out well for us.”

RRC managed to force a turnover on downs, however, and took over the ball at their own 27. From there they marched all the way into the red zone before a fade to Vold fell into the hands of a waiting Blake Steffl for RRC’s fourth turnover on the day.

RRC’s defense stood strong again as a sack by Blake Paplow forced the Cougars into a three-and-out, and the Falcons were set up at Cedar Mountain’s 46-yard line with 11:48 left to play in the game. RRC finally got things going on offense, with a 23-yard run by Carter Therkilsen and a 13-yard reception by Vold setting up a touchdown pass to Lang to cut the lead to 29-6.

However, the onside kick failed, and Cedar Mountain was able to seal the game with Freitag’s third touchdown run from 8 yards out to go up 36-6. RRC managed two long touchdowns by Carter Therkilsen with the Cougars’ subs in to put the final score at 36-22.

Despite the win and the emotions over Cedar Mountain’s first state appearance in football, Freitag made it clear that the team was not done yet.

“We’re all really happy right now,” Freitag said. “But we still have more football to play. We’ve just got to bring it next week.”