LAYTON — It’s normally difficult to have a successful football team at Layton Christian Academy.

That’s because of the number of players who are new to football — most of those are international students — plus generally low numbers altogether and, recently, more coaching turnover than British soccer teams.

The 2021 LCA team bucked that recent trend.

A year after a dumpster-fire, 1-9 campaign complete with a late-season coach firing, the new-look and new-coach Eagles went 9-5, finished second in the 1A North Region and finished as 1A state runner-ups.

LCA is the 2021 Standard-Examiner All-Area Football Team of the Year.

The turnaround from one win to nine (technically eight since one was a forfeit) was the best in the state, and even the year-over-year improvement of seven wins would’ve been tied for tops in the state.

“I feel like with these guys, the hunger was always there, the desire was always there to be great, and along with the coaching staff … along with great administration and support of the school, it was almost like the perfect storm,” head coach Ray Stowers said.

Stowers said he felt good about the team’s prospects back in summer camp and workouts, long before the Eagles actually lined up against another team.

“Mind you, we didn’t scrimmage anybody in the offseason or anything like that, our first game against Judge (Memorial) was our first action against, you know, a team,” Stowers said. “Talking to the coaches we’re like, ‘Why change anything?’ They were like, ‘Hey if that’s the formula to get us there.”

The Judge game was an eye-popping 40-0 win, a surprising result given the context of 2020’s season, which was all anyone outside LCA really knew about the team before 2021.

“And to see what they did (at Judge) — a lot of mistakes, obviously, but with all the mistakes and how dominant they were, I knew this group was gonna be special,” Stowers said.

That win was the Eagles’ biggest win since 2012, and it was just the first of many records that fell in 2021.

LCA set season records for wins with nine (again, one was a forfeit win, but even eight wins would’ve been a record), points (419), and points allowed per game (13), among a bevy of other school records the team shattered.

After a forfeit win against Monticello, the Eagles lost their next game on the field, 30-23, at 5A Uintah. They got the No. 6 seed in the 1A state playoffs, which appeared to put them on the back foot, but it ultimately didn’t matter.

LCA actually got to play Monticello this time, winning 84-0 in the first round of the playoffs, which broke a 102-year-old record for most points scored by a team in a playoff game and the record for most lopsided playoff win.

Then, the Eagles went to Enterprise and pulled off a gutty, 30-26 win against the No. 3 seed, and followed that with a 14-13 win against No. 2 Kanab in the semifinals at Southern Utah University.

Those wins set up a rematch with Duchesne, which beat LCA 39-15 in the regular season to win the 1A North title. Layton Christian played better the second time, but ultimately fell 18-14.

After that game, Stowers said the difference came down to things like penalties, turnovers and other mistakes that he said were the reasons why LCA lost the games that it did.

Stowers credited the team as a whole for getting to the state title game, but the Eagles had plenty of individual standouts as well (even Duchesne’s quarterback called LCA the most athletic team in 1A).

Running back/linebacker Jessaia Giatras-Moala rushed for 1,919 yards on 10.7 yards per carry with 24 touchdowns in 13 games played.

Fullback/linebacker Manu Vaitaki rushed for 1,085 yards and co-led the team in tackles with 53.

Receiver/cornerback Malik Johnson led the state with 10 interceptions, and also 785 receiving yards on 31.4 yards per catch with 10 touchdown catches.

Lineman Tevita Pome’e paved the way for two 1,000-yard rushers, co-led the team in tackles (53), and led the team in tackles-for-loss (seven) and sacks (4.5). Pome’e also got offers from Oregon State and Vanderbilt.

Those four players are all juniors. Most of the team, in fact, is expected to return in 2022. They and everyone else are all ready for 2022.

“The very next Monday after the championship game, almost the whole team came up to me and asked when can they start working out, they want to start training, like, whoa whoa whoa,” Stowers said. “It was pretty cool to see that.

“I’m excited for them, I’m excited to see that they understand now — when I first came in, I was the one chasing them, ‘Hey we gotta do this, we gotta do that.’ It’s kind of like the other way around.”

LCA brought Stowers aboard in October 2020 to coach the final two games of that season. He only coached one because COVID-19 ultimately canceled their first-round playoff game, but he still had 10 months as the team’s head coach under his belt before the team even played a game in 2021.

As the Eagles are expecting to return most of their core group of players and, if this next offseason is as beneficial as the previous one, there’s no telling how good LCA could be in 2022.

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