When Hunter takes on Murray tonight, the Wolverines will be back to familiar form.
''We're playing more of that smash-mouth style," said assistant coach Brandon Burt. We have 5 or 6 tailbacks who are really producing and our line is playing better."
It took a while for the Wolverines to make the adjustments and find a rhythm. Hunter lost three of its four four games and struggled to get things going on offense. But the Wolverines are back on track after two big wins over Cyprus (38-0) and Granger (56-20). Although Hunter knows the schedule will get much tougher from here -- after playing Murray, the Wolverines will play the top two teams in Region 2, Cottonwood and Skyline -- going on a two-game win streak is just what Hunter needed.
"We've made adjustments," Burt said. "And I think we've found our niche."
--Maggie Thach

The No. 1 baseball prospect in the state of Arizona has committed to play baseball for BYU, according to several recruiting Web sites.

Jaycob Brugman, a senior center fielder at Desert Vista High in Phoenix, committed to BYU coach Vance Law earlier this week after a recent visit to Provo.

Brugman is listed as the state's top prospect on ArizonaVarsity.com. He will sign with BYU in November, but there is a strong possibility that he will be picked in next June's Major League Baseball draft.

Then, Brugman will have a decision to make: sign a pro contrract or start his baseball career at BYU.

Brugman hit .512 as Desert Vista's leadoff hitter last season with 15 home runs.

The lefty (throwing and hitting) is 6-feet, 175 pounds.

Who are the best high school quarterbacks in Utah this year?

I checked out the Alta-Lone Peak game last Friday, and saw two of the state's better QBs, Alta's Jordy Brown and Lone Peak's Tannon Pedersen go at it. I was really impressed with Pedersen's arm and Brown's overall athletic ability.

I know Brown has an offer from Snow College.

But there may be another senior QB to keep an eye on -- Cottonwood's Crosby Jensen.

Jensen, a bit unkown because he is in his frst season as a starter (having played behind all-stater Steve Romero last year), said he recently received his first scholarship offer.

Weber State made the offer to the 6-foot-2, 175-pound senior whose older brother, Riley Jensen, played for Snow, BYU and Utah State in his college career.

Jensen said he has also talked to Louisville and Utah State, and both have let him know then have heavy interest.

Word on the street is that USU is looking at both Jensen and Jordan quarterback Alex Hart, and may make an offer to one of those seniors before the season is over.

Jensen said Utah, Southern Utah, Dixie State and Snow have also shown some interest.

Jensen got off to a rocky start in his team's opener against Alta. But since then, he's been terrific.

In his last four games, he has completed 89 of 127 passes (71 percent) for 1,067 yards and 13 touchdowns with just one interception.

"It has been an interesting process, adjusting to varsity football," he said. "I've had to learn as I go."

Knowing that he was not on the college recruiting radar last spring, Jensen hit the camp trail hard in hopes of improving his game and attracting the attention of college scouts. He attended camps at Utah, BYU, Utah State and UNLV and also participated in the All-Poly Camp in Bountiful, among others.

Cal Hanks is going from one end of the state to the other to play his college basketball.

Hanks, a 6-foot-11 senior center at Mountain Crest High in the Cache Valley, has orally committed to Southern Utah University.

Hanks will sign a national letter of intent with SUU on Nov. 10.

He was also recruited by St. Mary's, Weber State and Utah Valley University.

An all-Region 5 selection in 2009, Hanks played club basketball last summer for Salt Lake Metro, and is considered to be the top 2010 post prospect in Utah by the Intermountain Hoops Scouting Service.

At SUU, Hanks will join two former Metro players -- former Hillcrest star Ryan Brimley and former Cedar City High star Joel Einfeldt.

Billy Vavau, a 6-3, 295-pound senior lineman at Jordan High, has told the Laramie (Wyo.) Boomerang he has committed to Wyoming. Vavau has played on both sides of the ball, but said he chose Wyoming for the chance to play defense. Utah, Utah State and Southern Utah all looked at him as a possible contributor on offense.
Vavau started his high school career at Kearns, but transferred to Jordan prior to his junior season despite starting as a freshman and a sophomore for the Cougars.

A regular recruiting trail reader noticed that Utah women's basketball coach Elaine Elliott recently tweeted that she will have three girls who have committed to the Utes on campus this weekend.

Who are the three?

The Tribune's Utah women's basketball writer, Tony Jones, will have more on the recruits in the newspaper soon, but here's the list:

* Cierra Dunbar, a 5-foot-10 forward from Elko High in Elko, Nev.

* Allison Gida, a 5-11 point guard from Ashland, Ore.

* Brittany Knighton, a 6-1 forward from Oregon City, Ore.

Knighton recently committed to the Utes and was also drawing interest from Oregon, Vanderbilt and UC Santa Barbara. She averaged 14.4 points as a sophomore and 7.7 as a junior after returning from an ACL injury.

A defensive end who originally signed with the University of Utah in February of 2008 has announced he is transferring to Hawaii.

According to the Honolulu Advertiser, Siaki Cravens, a 6-foot-3, 240-pound defensive end, committed to the Warriors on Tuesday.

Cravens transferred from Utah to Long Beach City College after spring semester. He will have three years to play two seasons at UH. He also drew some interest from USC and UCLA.

The Utes recruited him out of Temecula Valley High School in Temecula, Calif.

A 7-foot-2 center from Canada who counted BYU among his five or so major college basketball scholarship offers has chosen Arizona State.

Jordan Bachynski, who is currently on an LDS Church mission in Florida, will sign with the Sun Devils on Nov. 11, he said in an email to ASU head coach Herb Sendek on Tuesday morning, according to several recruiting Web sites.

A source told the Tribune that Bachynski also had offers from Oregon State and UConn, and confirmed that BYU had indeed tendered a last-minute scholarship offer; Scout.com reports that Cal was also in the mix.

Bachynski's brother, Dallin, signed last year to play for Southern Utah University.

Jordan Bachynski graduated from Centennial High in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and then briefly attended Findlay Prep School in Las Vegas. He never played for Findlay, though, due partly to an ankle injury.

Bachynski committed to UNLV before his mission, and then decided to re-open his recruitment while in Florida.

His mission president allowed him to take visits from UConn, BYU, ASU and Oregon State last month, although he did not play basketball in front of the representatives from those schools.

Dixie High baseball star Dallen Reber has decided to take his talents a long ways from home.

Reber, a third baseman, has committed to Kentucky of the SEC and will sign a national letter of intent with the Wildcats in November.

Reber, 6-foot and 210 pounds, was also recruited by BYU.

"Obviously BYU is a great school. I know if I was to choose BYU I would have a great experience there too," Reber told David Cordero of The Spectrum newspaper in St. George. "Kentucky felt right. You can't really argue with that."

Reber, a three-sport athlete, made an official campus visit to Kentucky earlier this month.

Reber's teammate at Dixie, pitcher Chunner Nyberg, will sign with BYU.

It is getting close to crunch time for the state's best boys basketball player to choose where he will be playing college basketball.

Provo High's Kyle Collinsworth has said he would like to decide by the middle of October, and he has started eliminating some schools and narrowing his list.

According to a source familiar with Collinsworth's recruitment, the Provo senior has pretty much narrowed his favorites list to BYU, USC and Virginia.

He visited Arizona State, Kansas, Utah, UNLV and Stanford (on unofficial visits) but has eliminated those schools and won't be making any official visits to any of them.

Collinsworth made his official visit to USC on Sept. 4-5 and was given the red-carpet treatment. He toured the new $150 million Galen Center, attended the USC-San Jose State football game and met athletic director Mike Garrett.

His hosts for the trip were Jordan Cameron, a former BYU basketball player who now plays football for the Trojans, and James Dunleavy, son for Los Angeles Clippers coach Mike Dunleavy.

USC likes Collinsworth because of his versatility; He can play point guard, shooting guard and small forward/wing.

New Virginia coach Tony Bennett, who began recruiting Collinsworth when he was at Washington State, is still pursuing Collinsworth hard despite having already secured commitment from four other top recruits.

Virginia is trying to set up an official visit and is telling Collinsworth that his commitment would give it a top 10 recruiting class.

As for BYU, Cougar coaches made an in-home visit last weekend. Collinsworth, whose brother Chris played for the Cougars his freshman year before departing on an LDS Church mission, will take his official visit to BYU the weekend of Sept. 25-26.

Pleasant Grove High's Kim Dahl, a junior middle blocker and outside hitter, has orally committed to play college volleyball for BYU.

Dahl, who has also played for the Club Utah 16 Black team coached by Scott Lee, said she has dreamed of playing for the Cougars since she was 5 or 6 years old.

Dahl started drawing interest from recruiters when her teams did well at tournaments in Las Vegas and Miami.

Dahl started her freshman season at Pleasant Grove as a middle blocker and also started as a sophomore.

She's now 6-foot-1 and had 13 kills, five aces and three blocks in a match last week against Lone Peak.

BYU first offered Dahl last January. She also had offers from Utah, Utah Valley, St. Mary's, the College of Charleston and Buffalo via letters or email.

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Scout.com is reporting that J.J. O'Brien, a 6-foot-6 power forward from Alta Loma High in California has orally committed to Utah. The site says O'Brien visited Utah's campus the weekend of Sept. 5.

Intermountain Hoops will be hosting one of the top women's high school basketball evaluators in the country at the Future Collegiate Girls Evaluation Camp. Dan Olson of the Collegiate Girls Basketball Report will be doing player evaluations at the camp. Dan Olson and the Collegiate Girls Basketball report have more than 400 colleges that are subscribed to his report.

The camp will be held on Saturday (Sept. 12) at Salt Lake Community College South Campus from 12:30 pm to 5:30 pm. The camp will feature many of the top girls high school basketball players in the Intermountain West.

Information and registration is available at www.intermountainhoops.com.

Enrollment in the camp is limited.

More news to pass along regarding where some of the state's top high school basketball players will play this season.

Layton Christian's Will Beard, a 6-foot-2 point guard, is playing at Wenatchee Valley College in the state of Washington. Beard broke his foot and missed most of his senior season at LCA.

Bonneville High's Scott Sellers, also a point guard, has signed with Central Wyoming Community College.

The Salt Lake Metro girls basketball club program has announced where its members of the 2008-2009 graduating class are headed to college.

All 16 players from the class of 2009 who participated with Salt Lake Metro are headed to college: 14 will play basketball and two will play volleyball.

Metro has now produced 65 women's college basketball players in its four years of existence, including 21 who went on to the Division I level.

Here's the list:

Lexi Amundsen Western Wyoming CC
Tayler Anderson Southern Utah University
Nicole Bishop Northeastern (Volleyball)
Jaquel Christensen Snow College
Codi Anne Corpening Casper College
Allie Eastman Westminster College
Chloe Ence BYU/Hawaii
Tina Fakahafua College of Southern Idaho
Sammie Jensen Snow College
Felicity Jones College of Southern Idaho
Brooke Larsen Alaska Anchorage
Jami Mokofisi Salt Lake CC
Jadie Parsons Southern Utah University
Gabriella Rodriguez Dixie State College
Chelsea Sorensen Western Wyoming CC (volleyball)
Nicole Yazzie Westminster College

Scout.com has come out with another of its lists of top prep players in the Western United States, this time presenting the top tight ends.

No Utahns made the top 10.

However, Pleasant Grove's Bryan Sampson -- who has committed to BYU -- and Spanish Fork's Jordunn Mattinson -- who has committed to Utah State -- are on the "Next 10" list.

Cooper Pelluer of Skyline High in Washington, who will be catching passes from BYU-bound Jake Heaps, is on the "Others to Watch" list.

---------------------------

Andy Vasher, head men's basketball coach at Hartnell College in Salinas, Calif., has let us know that three more Utah prep stars are headed his way.

Woods Cross' Tyler Stahle, Provo's Beau Hunter and Jordan's Colton Burgon have signed to play for Hartnell.

Also, former Payson star Blake Francom, a 6-6 forward, enters his sophomore season at Hartnell and is one of the top returning scorers in California junior college basketball.

Kyle Collinsworth, the best high school player in the 2010 class, will visit the University of Southern California this weekend, according to his father, Jeff. USC then will come back for a home visit on September 14th. Collinsworth, a four star recruit from Provo High, who is amongst the top 100 players nationally, has narrowed his choices to Virginia, BYU, USC and Kansas. He has said that he hopes to have a decision made by the start of basketball season.
USC has made plenty of inroads in order to secure Collinsworth's services. The Trojans have made the 6-foot-7 guard a priority.

Tony Jones