The Uintah High School hockey team lost to Bingham High School 3-1 on senior night, but turned around and thrashed Bingham 7-3 the following morning.

Friday night, seniors Dakota Bowden, Kayla Richardson, Bowdy Stubbs, Duel Hacking, Lars Carlson, and Kade Rouska were honored for their careers skating for the Utes in a pregame ceremony.

Uintah went up 1-0 quickly in the game, but Bingham worked its way back in with some physical play, and took a 3-1 lead early in the second period.

Bingham had the size advantage, and put it to good use, laying out a few Uintah skaters with big open-ice checks.

“They’re a big team, they’re very developed, so they’re more mature. They have 12 seniors on that team,” said Uintah head coach David Pipher. ““They did a very good job of identifying who our best players were and shutting them down.”

Uintah had two goals waved off in the game that would have tied the score if both had been allowed to stand.

After the sluggish effort Friday night, Uintah hit the ice with a head of steam Saturday morning for an unofficial scrimmage against the same Bingham squad, and dominated 7-3.

Pipher said a big reason for the sudden reversal was a coaching adjustment.

“Friday night, they would send a cherry picker out, and we hadn’t seen that,” Pipher said, explaining that Bingham would defend its own zone with four or sometimes three skaters, while one or two forwards skated in the neutral zone, looking for a breakaway on the Uintah goal.

When Uintah dropped defensemen back into the neutral zone to try and cover, Pipher said, “we’d give them another avenue to clear the puck.”

Saturday Uintah went into power play mode, and played five-on-four, or five-on-three when Bingham went looking for the two-line pass, to great success.

Uintah’s next game is against UCI South at the Accord Center on Friday.