The tears fell like snowflakes, and the snowflakes fell like tears.

For the first time in three years, a team other than Hurricane felt the agony of losing in the Class 3A championship game. While Hurricane celebrated its 21-0 redemption with snow angels and snowballs on the blanketed white turf at Rice-Eccles Stadium, Desert Hills players discouragedly trudged to their locker room.

State championships are hard to win. No one has known that better than Hurricane over the past three years. No one knows it better than Desert Hills today.

The pain, that empty feeling that comes free of charge with falling short of your dreams, slithered its way just a few short miles down a stretch of Southern Utah interstate.

"We came out and played," Desert Hills running back Mike Needham said. "It just wasn't enough."

That the Thunder — whose school opened in 2008, the year Hurricane's losing streak began — advanced to the 3A title game was a wonder on its own. Desert Hills (9-4) lost its final two regular-season games, to Hurricane and Cedar. Quarterback Porter Harris was intermittently sidelined with a popped capsule in the joint of a finger on his right hand.

It was his ring finger.

"I am proud," said Harris, who threw three interceptions against Hurricane and was sacked twice. "Our team fought hard, we get beat two times in a row and to bounce back and make it to a state championship is huge."

Needham rushed for 300 combined yards in the previous two rounds of the playoffs, but he was held to just 41 against Hurricane.

"They were more confident," he said. "We've never played in this weather."

Needham and Harris will graduate, like Hurricane's seniors of the past three years, moving on after an agonizing finish. But the younger players, coach Jake Nelson said, will remember Friday night. The snow and the loss. But mostly the feeling.

"My team's got a lot of heart and a lot of desire," he said, "to get back to this point right here."