The number on his back was zero.

Walking off the Rice-Eccles turf, Bryson Pabst threw his arms wide and turned his palms up to a sky that had no answer for him: less a kid who had just pulled an upset than one collecting a debt.

"Nobody had us winning this game," he would say a few minutes later, helmet still in hand. "We checked everywhere, not one person. They were saying just some 14 seed. Just some 14."

By then, "just some 14" had done it: No. 14 Green Canyon 24, No. 2 Crimson Cliffs 21. A ticket to the 4A state championship game, earned against the one team that had spent two years standing in the Wolves' way.

That is the part the bracket never showed. To everyone outside the stadium, this was a bracket-buster, a feel-good Cinderella story. To the kids who played it, it was overdue.

"These kids beat us two years back to back, including in the state championship," Pabst said. "So this time was personal."

He was not exaggerating. Crimson Cliffs had ended Green Canyon's season in the title game two seasons earlier, then knocked the Wolves out of the playoffs again the year after that. This was the third meeting. The first two had a way of lingering.

One night with the answers

For one Friday night, Green Canyon had every answer.

Junior quarterback Ethan Munk was the engine: two touchdown passes through the air and a 103-yard night on the ground that he capped with a fourth-quarter touchdown of his own. The Wolves struck first when Munk found Pabst, the kid in zero, for the opening score. Pabst paid it back on the other side of the ball, stuffing a Crimson Cliffs drive short of the goal line when the Mustangs had a chance to even it.

The lead changed hands the way it always seems to in this matchup, a dogfight, the way Green Canyon prefers it. And with the title game on the line and two minutes left, Tanner Holt stepped up and sent a 40-yard field goal through the uprights to make it 24-21.

It still was not safe. Green Canyon lost the turnover battle, and Crimson Cliffs got the ball back with a chance to win it. The Wolves' defense closed the door anyway.

"I would not have liked my odds if you told me that," head coach JT Tauiliili admitted afterward, about handing the ball back to a No. 2 seed with the game on the line.

They did not need the odds. They had each other.

The heart of it

If Pabst was the edge, Hayden Schramm was the heart.

"Never give up. We have been through this. This is our game," Schramm said. "We always play in a dogfight. We knew we had it in us."

Ask him how a team picks itself up when it is down, and there is no speech, just the plan. "Stick to the game plan. Trust in the coaches, trust in the quarterback, trust in everyone. Just stay confident."

He had carried more than most into the night. "I have overcome two injuries, and our team did not start the best," he said. "But we are here now. It all matters how you end."

Just every year for us

So call it a Cinderella run if you want. Pabst has heard it. He is done with it.

"They call it Cinderella runs," he said, "but at this point it is just every year for us. We thrive off that."

That is what doubt does for this group, he says: it is fuel, not weight. And leadership, to him, is not the warm version of the word. "It's somebody who can go out and compete every snap. Hold people accountable. I'm not the nicest person in the game, you can ask anybody that. But it's just being held accountable at all times."

Next Thursday waits, and so does No. 1 Ridgeline, an all-Cache Valley final for the 4A title.

But that was next week. For one Friday night, the kid in zero walked off the field with his arms wide and his palms up, and let everyone who had doubted him do the math.

Photo and video coverage of Green Canyon's semifinal win, including full postgame interviews with Bryson Pabst and Hayden Schramm, in the Spectator Sport Media video archive.