High school football: Box Elder runs all over Bear River in dominant rivalry victory

Box Elder has historically dominated Bear River in their long-standing rivalry, and that trend continued in a big way on Thursday night.

The Bees scored on their first five offensive possessions, racing to a 30-point halftime lead and coasting from there for the 58-14 victory to improve to 3-0 this preseason.

Junior running back Judd Howells accounted for half of Box Elder’s eight touchdowns, giving him seven on the season. He finished the game with 231 rushing yards as Box Elder total 503 for the game.

The Bees finished with over 670 yards of total offense.

With the win, Box Elder ran its winning streak to five straight over Bear River, with the Bears’ last victory coming in a 26-22 win in 2020.

Thursday was the 105th meeting between the Golden Spike rivals, the longest uninterrupted series in state history. Box Elder leads the all-time series 75-27-2.

The only rivalry in Utah that’s been played more times is East-West at 114 meetings. The teams have only meet twice since 2012 though, and don’t play each other this year.

Key third-down conversions on its opening two drives helped Box Elder jump out to a quick 14-0 lead on a pair of short Howells’ touchdown runs.

Box Elder’s defense set up the offense with great field position early in the second quarter on a Landen Hardy interception — his first of two — and a few plays later Landon Harding hauled in a Kadyn Reyes fourth-down pass for the 21-0 lead.

The Bees’ defense tacked on a safety to make it 23-0, and then less than a minute later, Howells completed his hat trick of touchdowns with a 64-yard burst for the 30-0 lead.

The offense wasn’t done though, with Reyes connecting with Maddox Earnest on a 24-yard TD pass, pushing the cushion to 37-0 with 6:16 left in the half.

Bear River finally got on the board late in the second quarter with Jaxson Theurer hitting Eli Braegger on a 56-yard touchdown pass, a score that helped the Bears avoid the mercy-rule running clock straight out of halftime.

Bear River cut the deficit to 37-14 coming out of halftime on a Theurer 80-yard touchdown pass to Glaiden Behrens, but Box Elder closed the game with 21 unanswered points for the easy victory.