Pirates Lose First Game At Faith

By DAVE BELCHER

The Progress

The football season officially began last week as the Moapa Valley High School Football team played their first game of the season against Faith Lutheran High School in Las Vegas. A bit rusty from such a late start on the season, the Pirates struggled against the Crusaders, losing the game 41-20.

Faith is a 5A school moving up in alignment this year with the larger schools. As such, the Pirates would normally not met the Crusaders on the field if not for the COVID pandemic which has exempted all CCSD schools not doing in-person instruction from competing in NIAA sports. To build a schedule at all, large teams must go up against small teams in the shortened sports seasons.

This season will be played without a postseason playoff. Each team received a schedule of five games except for Virgin Valley who will play just three games because of their late start.

Even so, it was great to see high school football being played again. The late start has made things rough because it has been over a year since high school football has been played in the state of Nevada. And the

Pirates were facing personnel challenges as it was.
“We are young on the line,” said MVHS head coach Brent Lewis. “It’s like we are playing our JV lineman this year at Varsity. It is a great year for them to get some experience.”

Faith Lutheran showed their team strength and skill early in the game. They scored twice with deep passes in the first quarter. The first was a 66-yarder when Marcus Canalas found his receiver open. The second was a 67-yarder when Joshua Goins took advantage of a blown coverage deep.

The Crusaders built a 20-0 lead in the first half before the Pirates got on the scoreboard with 3 seconds remaining in the first half. The Pirate touchdown was set up by Dunston Gordon who intercepted a Canalas pass returning it 40 yards. Moapa Valley quarterback Cameron Reese threw to Austin Heiselbetz on a 14-yard touchdown pass.

Earlier in the game Landon Wrzesenski intercepted a pass in the endzone stopping a Crusader drive.

The Moapa Valley offense struggled early as Faith dominated the line of scrimmage. Reese would finish the game 5-21 throwing for just 71 yards as the Crusaders pressured him throughout the game.

Canalas scored twice in the second half for the Crusaders running the ball both times. One for 3-yards then the second for 31-yards.

Jaden Turner caught two passes for touchdowns helping the Crusaders to the win. Faith Lutheran finished with over 400 yards of total offense in the game.

Moapa Valley scored twice in the second half with Wrzesinski running in a 2-yarder and Jamye Carvajal running one in from 8-yards away. Carvajal would score the two-point conversion as well.
Moapa Valley finished with 192-yards of total offense with Carvajal running for 76-yards.

The stands were void of Pirate fans for the game, as COVID mandates had restricted the usually large local crowd from attending the game. But the game was broadast over the NFHS network, a streaming service. Unfortunately, the broadcast had a few issues and many viewers reported being unable to stream most of the fourth quarter.

Lewis became emotional in talking about parents not being able to watch their kids play.
“I hope that parents know and understand that it is heartbreaking for us coaches that they can’t be there as well,” he said. “I hope that they understand that we are doing everything we can, we are fighting every battle we can, and we won’t stop fighting until we can finally get our fans at the games. Because it is just a tragedy that they don’t get to watch their kids play their senior year of football!”

The Pirates will travel to Pahrump Valley Friday to play the Trojans. Game time is 7:00 pm. Pahrump Valley is in Nye County where, like the other 16 counties in Nevada, football is being played. Clark County School District is the only one in the state where schools are unable to play sports.