Warriors Fall to SaberCats in Season Opener

HOUSTON — The Utah Warriors inspired comeback effort fell just short in a 22-15 loss to the Houston Sabercats during Saturday’s round one game of the 2024 season.

After incurring a rough start to the game, the Warriors rallied to score two straight tries to earn themselves a critical bonus point by losing by seven or less points.

Utah’s first try came with Spencer Jones touching the ball down off an assist from Joel Hodgson in the 68th minute, cutting the lead to 22-8 after the wind took the attempted conversion kick wide. Then in the 79th minute it was team captain Bailey Wilson leaping across the try line in the 79th minute for the final score of the evening

Wilson's try capped off a furious comeback attempt where the Warriors proved resilient and at their best to finish out an otherwise disappointing campaign.

“I saw enough signs with this team to suggest that we’re going to have a very good year,” said Warriors coach Greg Cooper. “I’ve talked about the last 20 minutes of the game being where we need to show our fitness, and clearly we looked fit out there. When we got the ball we looked dangerous.”

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The final 20 minutes of the game worked in stark contrast to the first 20 which saw Houston dominate possession to the tune of the 15-3 lead entering the half. Utah struggled to maintain possession throughout the first half, but particularly in the first 20 minutes, although it did manage a penalty kick made by Hodgson early on.

Houston out-physicaled the Warriors from the point of attack for much of the game's first 20 minutes, while proving more accurate in most phases.

“We went out there with that attitude that we’re going to fire our weapons, but we just couldn’t get that momentum in the first half,” Cooper said. “So we talked about momentum and how to get it back, and I felt we did well there in the second half.”

As mentioned, the second half proved an entirely different story.

Utah was the team setting forth the pace from the get-go for the game's final 40 minutes, and found itself touching the ball across the try line just two minutes into the second half, although a controversial knock on call disallowed the points. Officials reviewed the call on video, and didn’t have enough evidence to overturn the penalty leaving the Warriors with a 15-3 deficit.

A tough turnover several minutes later stalemated a lot of momentum achieved, with Houston intercepting a pass deep in its own zone to score a try and push the lead to 22-3 in the 62nd minute.

But the Warriors kept on battling from there to score the aforementioned tries to close out strong and gain what could prove to be a critical bonus point.

“I feel that when we got possession that we showed what we can do,” Cooper said. “The courage and fight that we showed is promising. But we obviously have to lift up our accuracy level.”

Showing forth that courage and fight for the last 20 minutes of games was a huge focus for the team this offseason, and the fact Utah showed so well in finishing out validated a lot of the work. The focus now will be starting out better and maintaining better possession for 80 minutes of game play.

Cooper’s team will have an opportunity to show improvements when it travels back home to take on the Chicago Hounds at Zions Bank Stadium next Saturday afternoon. Get tickets to the match here.