By GANNON HANEVOLD
Moapa Valley Progress
While the Moapa Valley High School Freshman Football team had its game canceled, the Junior Varsity Pirates still came out onto the field for theirs on Thursday and made a statement with their first game of the year.
From the beginning, it was clear that Moapa Valley had the upper hand. The Pirates dominated the game start to finish.
Just over four minutes into the game, Sunrise Mountain punted to the Pirates. After a bit of confusion with an interference penalty, the ball rested on the ground, open for the taking. Moapa Valley’s Tristan Lehman swooped in, picked it up and took it all the way back for a 50 yard punt return touchdown. A Kashten Frei PAT gave the Pirates an early 7-0 lead.
Just a few minutes later, Lehman capitalized on the offensive end and ran over a defender en route to another Pirate touchdown. The Pirates had jumped out to a 14-0 lead in no time.
On the ensuing defensive possession, the Miners were backed up into a third and long from the 2 yard line. Then a bad snap went through the legs of the Sunrise Mountain QB for a Moapa safety. This pushed the lead to 16-0 with 3:42 to play in the first.
The Pirates continued to rack up the points. Lehman scored his third touchdown from short distance to make the lead 23-0. In the second quarter, neither team could put the ball in the endzone, so the score would remain going into halftime.
In the second half, Aginae Cunningham of Sunrise Mountain scored from 11 yards out to put the Miners on the board early in the third. A fumble recovered by the Miners on the next possession proved to be a momentum swing.\ But the Pirates fought to get the ball back, and scored on their next possession.
QB Kashten Frei dropped in a beautiful long ball right into the hands of Carson Traasdahl for another score to put the Pirates up 30-6.
“We run a lot of passing plays off of that running game,” said MVHS head coach Dallas Larsen. “Once we can set it up, we can get the passing game going. We were just right there all game, and to finally connect on one boosts confidence that we can do it.”
Sure enough, the Pirates would continue to hold on. Another Lehman touchdown, a safety, and six points from freshman Rolando Villareal on the final play of the game, guided the Pirates to a 44-6 blowout victory.
It was an exciting way to start the year for the Pirates.
“I think defensively our kids just came out and executed their jobs,” Larsen said. “Our linebackers filled holes well and our linemen fought off blocks.”
While the game might have looked impeccable, there were flaws to be fixed as well, Larsen pointed out. “We made some mistakes,” he said. “Offensively, we had some holding penalties and other mistakes that we will look to fix.”
The JV and Freshman teams will look to do so when they take on Hurricane on Thursday at home.
