By DAVE BELCHER
Moapa Valley Progress
The Moapa Valley High School Football season ended on Saturday afternoon when Tahoe Truckee came to town and beat the Pirates, 23-16. It was the second year in a row that the Pirates’ season ended on their home field. It was the fifth time in a row that the Wolverines have beaten the Pirates when the two teams have met. It was also the first time since 1999 that Truckee had travelled to Moapa Valley for a game.
At Saturday’s game, the Pirates were plagued by turnovers. The Moapa team gave away a total of five turnovers in the game.
In the very first series Braeden St John lost the ball when it was knocked away in the Pirate backfield. Truckee recovered the fumble at the Pirate 31 yard line.
A pass over the middle and a couple of runs took the ball just inside the 10-yard line on fourth and five where a measurement found the ball an inch short turning it over to the Pirates inside their 10.
On the fourth play of Moapa Valley’s second series, a pass from Pirate quarterback Luke Bennett was tipped and picked off at the 32. The ball was returned to the Pirate 15.
Two plays later Truckee found the endzone and, after a fumbled extra point snap, held a 6-0 lead over the Pirates.
Series number three saw the Pirates march 80 yards down the field, ending with a 7 yard fade pass to the back left corner of the endzone to Josh Cox. Cox out-leaped the Truckee defender to bring the ball in for the touchdown. Leo Rios kicked the extra point giving the Pirates a 7-6 lead.
The Pirates held Truckee to three plays and a punt. Then they marched the ball to the Truckee 15 yard line and stalled. Rios was brought in and kicked a 32-yard field goal for a 10-6 Moapa Valley lead with 3:21 to play in the first half.
That would be the halftime score.
Truckee received the kickoff to start the second half. The Wolverines drove the ball to the Pirate 39 and stalled, finally punting to the Pirates.
On the first play Bennett overthrew his receiver where Truckee’s Sean Kelly picked the pass and returned it 26-yards for a touchdown. With the extra point, Truckee held a 13-10 lead.
The Wolverines kicked off and the Pirates started the next series at the 15-yard line. On the second play Derek Reese ran a post route, made a fake to the left, then ran to the inside and caught a perfect pass from Bennett. Reese ran up the Truckee sideline to finish an 85-yard play, giving the Pirates a 16-13 lead. Rios missed the extra point.
Moapa Valley was forced to punt on the next series. The punt was caught by Marcus Bellon who is also the Truckee quarterback. Bellon took the punt down the Pirate sideline 79-yards for a touchdown giving the Wolverines the lead that they would hold on to for the rest of the game. After the extra point Truckee led 20-16.
Moapa Valley was held and forced to punt again.
Once again Bellon caught the ball racing across the field to the Truckee sideline and to the endzone untouched.
But that one was called back by referrees for a block in the back. Truckee used a 13 play drive and finished it with a 44-yard field goal for the final score of 23-16.
Truckee finished with 183 yards rushing while Bellon was 4-10 passing for 32-yards Skaff recovered both Truckee fumbles while Kelly, Estabrook and Laferriere each had an interception. Moapa Valley did not report any statistics.
Truckee will now play Fallon for the state title at Carson City High School.
