It’s a tight four-team race in the Utah Youth Rugby single-school playoffs this weekend as the semis kick off on Friday and the final is played at the University of Utah soccer stadium on Saturday.

Snow Canyon, which includes a 13-10 defeat of United in its 2015 resume, will take on East, which defeated Highland last week in the quarters.

Paced by two tries from Kimo Mahina and with a good performance from Inoke Makoni, East has rebounded from a number of difficult losses, including one to Highland, to get to the top four.

On the other side of the bracket, Olympus has been very good, beating East, and Highland, but faltering against United earlier in April.

Last week, Olympus was paced by lock Mason Draper, who scored four tries and stole all of Cedar’s lineouts in a convincing victory. But this time, Olympus will be up against Herriman, who are undefeated, beating several of the top teams in the state.

“We are very excited to play Olympus,” said Herriman Head Coach Jeff Wilson. “We were not able to get together for a game this season so I am glad that we have the opportunity now.”

Herriman has had teams forfeit to them two weeks in a row, so they have been idle for a while. The players are champing at the bit to take the field for real, but one wonders if they could let that enthusiasm take them away from the task at hand.

“The good thing about the layoff is it gave us the chance to heal up and also allowed us to do our third service project of the year,” said Wilson, who is big on getting his players involved in the community. “We have also been able to refine some things that we had been implementing in practice, so there may be a few tricks up our sleeve that our opponents have not seen from us this year. We were also able to give some of our weaknesses a lot of attention and shore things up top to bottom.”

The game is also a clash of two former teammates in Wilson and Olympus Coach Blake Burdette. 

“He’s a good friend, and it is always a great game when you are able to compete against your buddy and someone that you respect,” said Wilson. “We anticipate Olympus to be well coached and to play good, hard, technically sound rugby. They have some impressive athletes that we will need to keep an eye on, but I feel that we are very well-prepared for this game.”

Levi Hunt will get a start for Herriman this weekend, having worked hard to earn a run-on with the varsity.

“He is simply playing too well for us to keep him out of the lineup,” said Wilson.