The Mountain Crest girls soccer team hoists the championship trophy after defeating Snow Canyon 3-0 in the 4A girls soccer championship on Saturday, Oct. 22, 2022. Photo by Robert K. Scott
With 2022 on the way out, it’s time to visit the biggest moments of the year for Cache Valley sports. For some, it was a rough year filled with pothole after pothole while for others it was a year of historic success with monumental wins and records set.
Here are the 10 biggest stories of the 2022 calendar year. We’ll go in roughly chronological order with these, though not completely as some don’t fit evenly with all the subject matter covered.
Men’s basketball team hosts NIT game
Under first-year head coach Ryan Odom, the Utah State men’s basketball team qualified for a postseason tournament for the fourth season in a row. And though it wasn’t an NCAA Tournament appearance as had happened for three straight years under Craig Smith, the fact the Aggies were able to host the opening round game of the tournament was a rare thing. The last time USU hosted an NIT game was 2004 when the Aggies took on Hawai’i.
Unfortunately, having the game at home couldn’t help Utah State come away with a win in the game as the Aggies lost to Oregon 83-72.
Gymnastics reaches highest heights and then loses coach
Under head coach Amy Smith, the USU gymnastics team became the best sports program at the university, consistently challenging for conference titles and making it into the Top 25 rankings. At the conclusion of the 2022 season the Aggies were Mountain Rim Gymnastics Conference champions, the first time they’d accomplished that feat. The team also recorded its second-highest score ever with a 197.025 and finished third in Session 1 of the second round of the NCAA Norman Regional.
Unfortunately, the excitement of this accomplishment was dampened by the news that Smith was taking a new head coaching job and many of the Aggies best gymnasts followed Smith to her new job at Clemson. Incoming coach Kristin White will have the task of replicating the stellar job Smith did with the Aggies over five seasons in Logan.
Blake Anderson controversies
Football head coach Blake Anderson created quite the stir after the Weber State game in which his decision to keep Bonner in the game was met with a loud round of boos. In the post-game press conference he had some fiery words for the fans, whom he believed had booed Bonner and not necessarily the decision for him to still be out there.
Anderson had a response to the boos Logan Bonner received during today’s game — a lengthy 72-second response in all. Here’s my transcription of what he said. pic.twitter.com/MOFxqjkeo7
— Jason Walker (@jwalker_sports) September 11, 2022
That situation cooled down without too much more fuss, but it wasn’t the end of controversy surrounding Anderson. The Salt Lake Tribune published an article which, relying on the testimony of a former USU football player, laid out a list of allegations including mistreatment of players, allowing bullying to take place in the locker room and being apathetic when told of such bullying. Anderson denied these claims.
Overall, 2022 was not a good year for Anderson, who not only had to deal with these headaches, but also real tragedy as his son committed suicide early in the year. Later Anderson and USU used the tragedy of the death of Anderson’s son into multiple efforts for positive change. These included the formation of the Robert Casen Anderson Memorial Fund, used for mental health resources in USU athletics and dedicating the week leading up to the team’s matchup against UNLV to raising awareness for mental health.
Aggies lose to Weber State, twice
This one’s hard to place chronologically-speaking since one of these happened in September and the other in December. But the Aggies’ losses to Weber State were huge stories, evidenced by the fact that two other entries on this list reference losses to the Wildcats.
Utah State lost to WSU in football for the first time in 44 years and then lost to them again in men’s basketball for the first time since 2017. It was a historic sweep for the Wildcats in the revenue sports, being only the second time ever it’s happened (the last time was also 1978, the only other loss Utah State has suffered to WSU in football).
Ike Larsen becomes household name
Redshirt freshman Ike Larsen was already a fairly well-known name to football fans in Cache Valley. He was a star football player for both Logan and Sky View high schools and stayed local to play his college ball. Many were hopeful the young defensive back could blossom into a special player but few expected to see Larsen become an honorable mention Freshman All-American.
Over the course of the season, Larsen recorded 33 tackles, 3.0 tackles for loss, 2.0 sacks and a bevy of game-changing plays. Larsen blocked three kicks on the season, one of which was returned for a touchdown by a teammate. He also had four interceptions, one of those he returned to the house for six points. Larsen’s stellar performance earned him multiple player of the week accolades. Twice he was named Mountain West Freshman of the Week and in one of those weeks he also earned the conference Defensive Player of the Week award.
Region 11 high school sports teams bring home 11 state titles, six runner-up trophies
Plenty of hardware found its way back to Cache Valley by way of Region 11 sports teams, with Ridgeline bringing in the most. Five of the six Region 11 teams captured at least one state title. Here is a breakdown of trophies won by school, ranked by number of said trophies won.
- Ridgeline (three championships, three runner-up finishes)
- Volleyball (1st)
- Girls Swimming (1st)
- Softball (1st)
- Boys Tennis (1st*)
- Girls Basketball (2nd)
- Drill Team (2nd)
- Boys Soccer (2nd)
- Mountain Crest (three championships)
- Girls Soccer (1st)
- Boys Wrestling (1st)
- Girls Wrestling (1st)
- Green Canyon (three championships)
- Girls Tennis (1st)
- Boys Tennis (1st*)
- Boys Lacrosse (1st)
- Bear River (one championship, two runner-up finishes)
- Girls Lacrosse (1st)
- Girls Wrestling (2nd)
- Softball (2nd)
- Sky View (one championship, one runner-up finish)
- Boys Swimming (1st)
- Boys Lacrosse (2nd)
*There was a three-way tie for the Boys Tennis championship, shared between Green Canyon, Ridgeline and Crimson Cliffs.
Controversy for Region 11 football teams
Multiple controversies involving Region 11 football teams cropped up over the course of the season. One involved Ridgeline High School and the other dealt with the now-former Logan High School football head coach Bart Bowen.
Firstly, three Ridgeline football players faced criminal charges over an alleged hazing incident. The incident reportedly occurred on a school bus during a trip to one of the team’s games.
Later, allegations of mistreatment by Bart Bowen were released in an article from the Herald Journal. Sione Pauni claimed Logan head coach Bart Bowen ignored an injury Pauni suffered and did nothing to stop bullying of Pauni done by members of the football team and other students. Bowen was let go by Logan High School at the conclusion of the football season which ended two weeks after the publication of the initial article.
John Hartwell resigns abruptly
There were rumors that Athletic Director John Hartwell was a top candidate for an opening of the same position at Auburn. Hartwell made no effort to hide his interest in the job, but when Auburn went with someone else, the assumption was that Hartwell would remain at Utah State for the time being. However, Hartwell announced he was simply resigning from Utah State and moving to Arkansas where he and his wife could be with his wife’s aging parents.
The news created quite a stir with some speculation that the resignation had something to do with recent controversies, including the one surrounding Anderson and the accusations of having a toxic environment in the athletics department. Those murmurings got a little louder when it was announced that USU’s president, Noelle Cockett, also announced her resignation in suspiciously-close proximity to Hartwell’s announcement.
Volleyball gets back-to-back conference title hardware and NCAA Tourney bid
Utah State volleyball had already returned with a bang in the 2021 campaign by winning a share of the Mountain West regular season title, but the Aggies managed to top that by winning the conference tournament this year and earning a bid to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2010.
The Aggies had several marquee wins over the course of the season, including a 3-1 win over No. 12 UCLA early in the season. Though they finished fourth in the conference, Utah State won three straight matches against New Mexico (3-0), UNLV (3-0) and San Jose State (3-1). The even more impressive fact about that conference tournament run was that the Aggies had gone 0-4 against UNM and UNLV in the regular season but swept both teams once the postseason rolled around.
Unfortunately, the magic didn’t carry into the NCAA Tournament. Utah State lost its first game to Arkansas.
Record-tying start for men’s basketball team
The men’s basketball team tied the school record for longest undefeated start to a basketball season, winning its first nine games of the year. The last time the Aggies had done that was at the end of the 1938 calendar year when the ’38-39 team also started 9-0 (the 1917-18 team also started 9-0 which was also the final record of the team as it only played nine games).
Those nine wins were powered by an historically good offensive output. Utah State scored 75 points or more in each of those games, the longest consecutive run of 75-plus point games to start a year by the Aggies since 1986-87. It was also the most points scored in the first nine games of the season in at least the last 12 years.
Though exciting as the start was, the ending of it was nearly as heartbreaking. Facing Weber State, the weakest Division I team on its schedule thus far (according to most, if not all, metrics), the Aggies fell and thus failed to set a new record, having to settle for a tie at the top instead.
