Despite passing touchdowns of 80 and 73 yards in the first half, Judge chose to kneel out the final 34 seconds at its own 24 with four turnovers also on its ledger. Whether that was a mistake or not is a speculative endeavor, but it did end a string of five straight touchdowns traded between the teams Thursday night at Conroy Stadium.

Ogden received the opening kick of the second half and speedy sophomore Synic Harvey cashed in. Harvey momentarily bobbled the catch at the 10, regrouped, veered left through a seam and burst past tacklers who had angles, then streaked up the left sideline for a 90-yard touchdown.

Judge sailed early but Ogden caught wind, kept turning over the Bulldogs and claimed a 45-19 victory, improving to 2-0 on the young season.

“We didn’t execute early and Judge was more physical than us in the trenches, but I was really proud of how they weathered the storm,” eighth-year head coach Erik Thompson said. “I thought it showed good character for a really young team to come back like that and not get their heads down.”

BRETT HEIN, Standard-Examiner

Blake Weston intercepted Judge Memorial quarterback Adrian Palmer, special teams forced a fumble on a Bulldogs kickoff return and Harrison Hoskins recovered a fumble on a short Judge rushing attempt. But despite three short fields for Ogden’s offense, Judge led 13-3 when Palmer hit receiver King Long over the top for an 80-yard touchdown with 7:06 left in the second quarter.

Senior quarterback Vinnie Apodaca pieced the Tigers down the field with completions to Harvey and Weston, setting up Keen Crowther for a 17-yard QB touchdown answer to make it 13-10 with 4:59 left in the half.

Junior defensive back Gavin Shreve was the one who took matters into his own hands for Ogden’s turnover-forcing defense, continuing a run of points that made it difficult to remember his Tigers once trailing by 10.

Shreve jumped in front of a pass to an inside receiver on an all-verts route pattern and corraled it at midfield, then weaved his way right for a 50-yard interception return touchdown.

“It was a bad ball so I caught it, ran down and the energy just started to catch on,” Shreve said. “It wasn’t the right energy in the first quarter but that kind of set the pace.”

BRETT HEIN, Standard-Examiner

Shreve said he was at safety only due to the first-quarter injury of safety/running back Jayden Long — one of several injuries, Thompson said, that led to the Crowther QB-run package.

Shreve had one defensive touchdown to his name over his football career before Thursday, but he doubled that and capped the night’s scoring with a 21-yard fumble return TD with 10:05 left in the ballgame — giving Ogden a 6-1 turnover advantage in the process.

“A lot of kids were making plays out there, playing free, having fun for each other,” Thompson said.

Judge Memorial (0-2) took one more shot in the first half, with Palmer throwing to Carter Imamura for a 73-yard touchdown strike to put the Bulldogs up 19-17 at the 2:45 mark.

But Ogden answered with an eight-play, 58-yard drive of 1:58. Crowther keyed that with a fourth-and-2 conversion at midfield, the first of four straight rushes for the junior that netted 41 yards.

That set up Harvey for a 9-yard shovel-pass touchdown reception to get Ogden ahead 24-19 at the break, leading to the Judge kneel-down and the Harvey kick-return TD.

Nearly matching his safety partner with a score of his own, Hoskins picked off a third-quarter pass and returned it 65 yards to the Judge 10 where he was finally tracked down.

Three plays later, Kale Flint scampered left for a 3-yard touchdown run, making it 38-19 after three.

The win kicked off four straight home games for the Tigers; next up is Carbon on Friday, Aug. 30.

HUNTER 15, CLEARFIELD 13

CLEARFIELD — Jordan Tovey ran for one touchdown and passed for one more but Clearfield fell to Hunter on a last-minute field goal Thursday night.

Tovey gave Clearfield (0-2) a 7-0 first-quarter lead on a 5-yard run. In the third quarter, Tovey connected with Griffin Dahl for a 21-yard scoring strike, but the two-point conversion failed, and Clearfield led 13-6.

Hunter scored a touchdown late in the fourth quarter, then kicked a 25-yard field goal in the final minute for the win.

Justin B. Johnson contributed to this story.