| MVHS | 49 |
| Del Sol | 40 |
By Dave Belcher
Moapa Valley Progress
The Pirates sailed to Del Sol High School in Las Vegas on Friday, September 23, where the Dragons invited Moapa for a home coming party. But the Pirates crashed the party with a 49-40 win in what was a so-called upset.
Del Sol had been ranked third in the south by the Las Vegas Sun and sixth by nevadapreps.com. However, they were ranked behind the Pirates at 17th in the state by maxpreps.com. In any case, it didn’t matter the Pirates are now 4-1 and Del Sol, who received their first loss of the season, sits at 3-1.
The Pirates started the game sluggish fumbling the ball twice in the first quarter. Apparently the previous week off had rusted the ship some. Del Sol took advantage of the miscues by scoring 10 points in the first quarter on short fields.
Chris Marshall was the therat for the Dragons as the featured running back and return specialist had led Del Sol to three victories prior to this game. Friday night he gained 126 yards total but the team lost 24 of that and Del Sol finished with 102 total rushing yards for the game. The Pirate defense made stops all night long frustrating the Dragons and resulting in some cheap shots toward the end of the game. The Pirate defense couldn’t let up or else the speedy Del Sol team would punish with a big play.
Marshall started the game on the second play as he swept left then, seeing the white jerseys double back, switched right to outrun all Pirates into the end zone from 15 yards out. With that the Dragons led 7-0 with 9:05 in the 1st.
The Pirates next series ended when Mortensen fumbled the ball at the Dragon 40 yard line.
The Pirate defense stood up and stopped the drive at the 10 yard line that set up a 28 yard field goal by Lindemann who nailed a 53 yarder last week.
The second quarter started with Moapa moving the ball again as they moved from their own 25 to the Del Sol 35 before a holding call stopped the drive and resulted in a Pirate punt to the 15.
First play was a completed pass to Jones for eight yards. As he turned up the field he forgot the ball as it fell to the ground where the Pirates recovered it at the Del Sol 23.
After four plays Mortensen ran the fifth from five yards out and put Moapa on the board. The extra point suffered from a bobbled snap and with 7:05 on the clock in the second it was 6-10 Del Sol.
The Dragons went six plays and out with a punt. It was on the Pirates sixth play that Watters found Brandon Johnson all by himself in the left side of the end zone and the Pirates took their first lead of the game.
The 40 yard pass was followed by Watters running it in for the 2 point conversion making the score 14-10 with 1:42 in the half.
But Del Sol wasn’t finished with the half yet. The kick off was returned to the fifty. Then Jones hauled in a 25 yard pass to the 25. After a Marshall screen resulted in a 5 yard loss Jones was found in the end zone to put the Dragons up 17-10 at the half.
Del Sol came out after the half with the ball on the first possession at their own 45. Five plays later Marshall scored from 34 yards with 9:29 on the clock.
It was then that the Pirate line started to dominate the game on both sides of the ball. The next three Pirate series saw three Pirate touchdowns. The first by Kasen Hughes from five yards out. The next by Mortensen from 4 yards out. Then it was McConnell’s turn from 2 yards out as Moapa was up 35-24 and the stadium was hushed on the Del Sol side. With 36 seconds left in the third Lindemann made a 34 yard field goal for a 35-27 Moapa lead.
The Pirates came out and scored two more times in the fourth with Mortensen going in from 4 yards and Watters from 1. The stadium was in shock as the 3A team was embarrassing the leaders in the southeast region at 49-27.
With 2:38 left and the second team in, Del Sol showed just how quickly they could score. Moapa fumbled the ball and Del Sol’s Paine took the ball 65 yards for a score.
The next Pirate series never started because the onside kick was successful to the 19 yard line.
A Moapa sack for a loss of 6 yards only delayed the next Dragon score as Jones caught another to bring the score to 49-40.
The extra point was good then it wasn’t. A flag on the ground indicated a false start on Del Sol and re-kick. This time the whole Pirate line busted up the middle to block the kick and Del Sol was finished.
Moapa ran out the clock with three kneel downs and came away with their second upset of the season 49-40.
Conner Mortensen finished with 207 yards rushing on 29 attempts. Sean McConnell had 49 on 9 attempts. Kasen Hughes had 2 carries for 24 while Dakota Gordon had 2 for 25. Dakota Watters had 2 for 5 for a grand total of 310 yards rushing. Watters threw for 158 yards on 6-10 as the Pirates racked up 468 total yards of offence.
Del Sol finished with 226 total yards.
Next week’s games are on Saturday with the freshman game starting at 1 P.M. against Faith Lutheran. The JV game will start at 3 P.M. against Canyon Springs instead of Faith because Faith canceled their JV season.
The Varsity game starts at 5 P.M. as they finish the day off with Faith who, by the way, was beaten by Cheyenne 50-9 on Friday. The Crusaders come to Jeff Keel stadium and field with a record of 1-3.
