Utah Battles Hard Against A Fired Up Seattle to Make It Over The Sea Wall

SEATTLE — The Utah Warriors early season road success continued on Saturday with a hard fought 30-27 win over the Seattle Seawolves.

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The Warriors jumped out to an early lead and were able to hang on until the 80th minute despite being issued a yellow card late in the match. Considering the venue and the quality of Seattle, it’s easy to argue Saturday’s win as the Warrior’s most impressive outing to date.

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“Seattle is never out of it and they have some serious quality,” said Utah Warriors fly half Joel Hodgson in his postgame interview. “We had to get back to basics and do the things that we’ve done well in other games and things we did well at the start of this game.”

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As for Hodgson, he provided his typical high quality of play throughout, scoring two electric tries while anchoring Utah’s attack.

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Hodgson’s first try came in the fourth minute on an impressive runout after receiving an offload from Zion Going for an early 7-0 lead. His second came in the 32nd minute after intercepting an attempted offload from the Seawolves which he took all the way back to give the Warriors a 14-6 lead at the half.

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D’Angelo Leuila added to Utah’s lead shortly after halftime with a penalty kick before Liam Coltman scored a try off of a maul situation just three minutes later to give Utah a commanding 24-6 lead in the 45th minute. Leuila then pushed the lead to 27-6 in the 54th minute with a penalty kick.

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But Seattle rarely goes away quietly, and didn’t do as much on Saturday.

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The Seawolves scored tries in the 59th and 62nd minute to cut the lead to 27-20 before Hodgson added a critical penalty kick to push the lead to 30-20 with just eight minutes remaining.

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“We made it hard for ourselves and sometimes didn’t execute like we wanted to, but it’s just great to get a win here. It’s something I’ve never experienced and it’s a great feeling,” Hodgson said.

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Before that win was secured, however, Seattle staged one last final bid, scoring a penalty try in the 74th minute that also caused Utah to play a man down for the final six minutes after being issued a yellow card.

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Utah buckled down from there, withstood Seattle’s late rally and ran out the clock for what could well be argued as its most impressive win of the early season.

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Hodgson was quick to credit the entire team for Saturday’s play, including those who didn’t even make the trip out to Seattle.

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“We’ve got a great bunch of boys in Utah,” Hodgson said. “There’s been some fresh faces that have come in that have just changed the feel about the place. What you see on the weekend is worked hard on during the week. Boys are really going after each other and we have 15 boys at home that could easily be pushing for selection on the weekend. So it’s not just the 23 you see on the weekend.”

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With the win Utah improves to 4-1 on the season with 19 total points and will return home to take on the New England Free Jacks (2-3) next Saturday. Seattle drops to 1-4 on the season with the loss.

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