Members of title-winning Northridge teams were recognized at halftime of the Knights’ regular-season finale on Friday night along with Erik Thompson, who was an assistant coach for those teams, eventually became Northridge’s head coach for more than a decade and is now coaching at Ogden High School.

Thompson, who made public his ALS diagnosis a little more than a year ago, gave a short speech at halftime and then turned the attention to the former Northridge players behind him, who performed one of their old postgame rituals.

They stood in a circle, Daniel Coats (former NFL player now head coach at Farmington High) threw a football way up in the air and when it landed, all the players fell down on the ground — they all got back on their feet just fine — just like they used to do 20 years ago whenever they’d beat teams.

Twenty-two years ago, Northridge went up against five-time defending state champion Skyline in the 5A state title game with the Eagles having thumped the Knights 40-14 in the regular season.

Northridge beat Skyline 44-29 in the 2000 title game, 37-26 in the 2001 title game and 41-39 in the 2002 championship game, a three-peat that established Northridge-Skyline as one of the preeminent rivalries in the state at the time.

The Knights remain the only Davis County school to have won three consecutive state football championships, according to the UHSAA record book.

One notable absence from Friday’s festivities was Fred Fernandes, who was the head coach of those championship teams. Fernandes coaches at Bingham High now, and Bingham played Riverton on Friday, beating the Silverwolves 42-21 to win the Region 3 championship.

As for the Northridge High game where all this was going on, the Knights lost 57-26 against the Higley Knights from Gilbert, Arizona.

Northridge led early 7-0 with a 10-yard touchdown pass from Porter Olsen to AJ Tillman.

Higley (5-1) went ahead 13-7 in the first quarter — the scoreboard clock malfunctioned, so time was kept on the field — and Northridge tied it 13-13 when Olsen landed a 66-yard TD pass to Malu Lumpkins.

Zach Smith caught a 4-yard TD pass from Olsen to bring an entertaining game to a 20-20 tie, which is when Higley started teeing off.

Higley had two touchdown passes to end the half, turned a Northridge interception into another touchdown, scored another TD off a short field and eventually built a 57-20 lead early in the fourth quarter.

Northridge got one back later with a 63-yard, catch-and-run TD from Olsen to Mason Obray.

LAYTON CHRISTIAN 35, NORTH SEVIER 7

Layton Christian tallied five rushing touchdowns in a big win at North Sevier that saw the Eagles (7-3, 4-0 1A North) clinch their first region championship in school history.

Jessaia Giatras-Moala and Manu Vaitaki each rushed for two scores and Matthew Bailiff rushed for one touchdown. Davi Paulino went 5 for 5 on extra points.

Justin Johnson contributed to this report.

Connect with reporter Patrick Carr via email at pcarr@standard.net, Twitter @patrickcarr_ and Instagram @standardexaminersports.