Who is top football team in Idaho? Eagle leaves no doubt after latest win
EAGLE, Idaho - Eagle High School has been the No. 1 team in the state all season.
But on Friday night, the Mustangs really looked the part.
They turned a showdown between the Class 5A's top two teams into anything but with a dominating 40-21 win over second-ranked Boise at Thunder Stadium.
Eagle (6-0) is now the only unbeaten team remaining in the classification.
“We’ve been waiting to put one together, a complete game,” Eagle coach James Cluphf said. “It’s probably been since the second week of the season since we’ve done that, especially on the offensive side of the ball.”
The 40 points was a season high, and nearly 14 points above its season average coming in.
The offense set the tone immediately.
Noah Burnham took a quick pitch from Davis Harsin and went 80 yards to the house on the game’s first play. The sophomore running back piled up a season-high 199 yards and four touchdowns on 15 carries. Nearly all of that came in the first half, too. He went into the locker room with 192 yards and three touchdowns.
“It’s really easy for a kid at such a young age to be able to get wrapped up in the noise right?,” Cluphf said. “He sees himself in the paper a ton and all over the media. He’s a good player and he deserves that notoriety. But what does surprise me is the maturity that he has at such a young age.”
However, the real star of the night might have been the defense.
It forced six turnovers, including five interceptions. Three of those came during a four-minute span in the third quarter that forced the running clock mercy rule to go into effect.
Ethan Mikita, Oliver Stephens and Jack Giannini all had picks to begin the second half. And all of them led to Mustang touchdowns. Giannini’s 50-yard interception return for a touchdown 6:57 remaining in the third quarter put Eagle up, 40-0.
A 40-point lead at any point in the second half, automatically triggers a running clock for the fourth quarter in 5A.
The Mustangs scored 27 points off turnovers. The Brave (5-1) scored all of their points with Eagle's backups in.
“A lot of preparation, watching film and studying the game,” Giannini said about what made the defense click. “We really had to focus this week and we went out and showed it.”
Eagle’s other touchdown on the night was a 21-yard pass from Davis Harsin to Treyson Anderson in that big third quarter.
Jordan McDonald had seven catches for 121 yards and a pair of touchdowns for Boise, which had 155 of its 350 total yards of offense in the fourth quarter.
