Pirates Defeat Hurricane At Home 25-13

By DAVE BELCHER

Moapa Valley Progress

It was a whole different Moapa Valley High School varsity football team on the home field Friday night, compared to the performance the week before.
“What a turnaround!” said a beaming MVHS head coach Brent Lewis. “We still did some things wrong, but the difference from last week to this week was huge.”

The annual early-season game between Moapa Valley and Hurricane, Utah has been close the last few years. The Pirates have won two of the last three. The Tigers are perennial playoff contenders every year making the state semi-finals and winning a Utah state title in the last five years.

The Hurricane team that the Pirates faced Friday night was bigger in both size and number. But when it came game time Moapa came up with what some would call an upset. Moapa Valley was a 25-13 winner.
The Hurricane first drive looked as if it could be a long game for Moapa Valley. The Tigers marched quickly down the field scoring their first touchdown with 4:23 to play in the first quarter. When Ray Cordova crossed the goal line from 3 yards out, the Tigers had their first and only lead of the game 7-0.
Early in the second quarter Moapa Valley saw Jacob Leavitt finish a drive with a 2 yard run into the endzone. The extra point cleared the crossbar and the Pirates tied the game.

Just four and a half minutes later Leavitt ran for a 6 yard touchdown giving the lead to Moapa Valley for good: 13-7 with a missed extra point.
The Pirate defense held Hurricane to 169 yards in total offense. The Hurricane receivers were tightly covered forcing many dropped balls.

On the first play from scrimmage for the Pirates in the second half, Pirate quarterback Daxton Longman hit Dayton Wolfley behind the line of scrimmage in the left flat. Wolfley then set his feet and found Jacob Leavitt running down the Pirate sideline. He was all alone. The Hurricane defense were all reacting to the play action of Wolfley. Wolfley’s pass caught up with Leavitt in full stride. Leavitt raced the final 30 yards of the sixty-one yards for a touchdown. The two point conversion run was stopped but Moapa Valley had a 19-7 lead.

Moapa Valley’s final touchdown came when Longman kept the ball from a yard away scoring with 10:04 to play in the game. This gave the Pirates a 25-7 advantage.
The Tigers scored their final touchdown when Joe Armijo caught and finished a 29 yard pass for the score with 3:29 to play.
The two point conversion failed leaving the final score 25-13.

Hurricane had 169 yards total offense: 73 coming from rushing with 96 yards through the air. Hurricane ran the ball 21 times and completed just 8 passes the whole game. There was a point in the third quarter where Tiger receivers dropped five consecutive passes.
Moapa Valley had 373 yards total offense. The Pirate running game had 42 carries for 138 yards rushing. Pirate quarterback Longman threw the ball 18 times completing half for 235 yards.

Wolfley had the touchdown pass for 61 yards. Wolfley also had 3 receptions for 94 yards. Jacob Leavitt had 4 receptions for 92 yards and a touchdown. Leavitt all by himself had as many yards as the whole Hurricane team with 73 on 16 carries scoring two touchdowns.
Derek Reese had 2 big catches for a total of 49 yards. Hurricane now drops to 1-2 overall this season while the Pirates even their record at 1-1.

This week the Pirates travel to Legacy High School where they play Friday at 7 pm.