High School Sports Roundup (March 31, 2021)

The Progress

MVHS Boys soccer
The Moapa Valley High School Boys soccer team got its first win of the season last week as they hosted Matre East. The Pirates came away with a 9-1 win.

Zack Bailey led the Pirates in scoring goals in this game, scoring three of them. Rylen Tobler scored twice while CJ Anderson, Ethan Fullman and Joey Bailey each added a goal for the Pirates who are now 1-6 this season. Keeper Danny Bailey allowed just the one score in a game where he didn’t see much action, especially in the second half as the Pirate defense led by Radley Tobler and Dillon Clove played very well.

In their second game of the week, the Pirates played Equipo. It was a physical match as Equipo checked many of the Pirates.

Equipo held a 4-0 lead late when a fight broke out. The game ended in a possible forfeit as Equipo’s team left the bench which caused the game to end right then.

The officials were checking the film to make an official ruling. If the game was a forfeit the Pirates will be awarded the win and Equipo will forfeit their next game as well.

Bailey and Toblereach played very well on defense. “It was a very physical game” said head coach Randy Tobler. “When we played Equipo a couple of years ago this game ended with the mercy rule. I am proud of the boys as they played hard and kept it close.”

The Pirates have three games this week, against Pahrump Valley, Virgin Valley and White Pine.

MVHS Girls soccer
The Pirate Girls’ Soccer team had two games on the schedule last week. The first was on Tuesday, Mar. 23 when the team travelled to Pahrump to take on the Trojans.

The Pirates had a challenge on their hands with Pahrump and ended up losing the match 4-0.
“It was a hard fought game against a good team,” said MVHS Head Coach Lisa Cornwall. “I think that we could have done more and there were areas where we could have been stronger. Fortunately, we will get another chance this week.”

Pahrump will be travelling to Moapa Valley on Friday afternoon, April 2 for a rematch.

The second match of the week took place on Thursday at Equipo Academy in Las Vegas. The Pirates had a clear victory here crushing the Yeti with a 8-0 score that invoked the mercy rule and ended the game early.

Scoring in the game were Scottlyn Hill and Makayla Baldwin who each scored two goals; and Brooke Sherwood, Bailey Andrew, Talli Fairchild and Mikayla Wadworth; each of whom put one goal on the board in the game.

Assists in the game were made by Andrew, Wadsworth and Hailey Western.

In addition to the rematch with Pahrump, the Pirate team will host Ely on Saturday afternoon. Then the team will face a formidable Bishop Gorman team on Monday night, Apr. 5.

Cross Country
The Moapa Valley and Virgin Valley cross country teams travelled to Pahrump Valley on Saturday, Mar. 27 for a 5K as they get ready for the regional meet in a couple of weeks.

Moapa Valley won the boys meet and dominated the run as the top five Pirates finished in the top seven places.

Preston Humes won the race with a time of 16:13.4 a new school record. Preston is a senior.
Marcus Shambaugh placed second with a time of 17:01.6. Ethan Woods of Virgin Valley placed third with a time of 17:32.1.

Virgin Valley finished third as a team in the meet.

Other Pirate finishers included Maximus Shambaugh in fourth with a time of 17:33.9; Preston Bushman, 6th, with a time of 18:15.3; Brady Montierth, 7th, with a time of 18:24.7; and Kayden Dixon, 14th, at 19:03.0.

On the Virgin Valley side, Francisco Martineze finished tenth with a time of 18:45. Jared Mercado placed twelfth at 18:48. Misael Rodriguez placed thirteenth with a time of 18:58. Rodrigo Thompson was fifteenth with a time of 19:04.

The final scores were Moapa Valley 20, Coral Academy 51 and Virgin Valley 53.
The Moapa Valley girls beat White Pine 23 to 33 in the meet.
Virgin Valley had just one runner in the race, Jenna Walters finished fifth for the Bulldogs in the race, with a time of 23:09.

Moapa Valley’s Emma Humes won the event with a time of 20:14. McKinley Bledsoe finished third with a time of 23:04.2. Hanna Watson finished fourth with a time of 23:08.5. Alena Hull placed seventh with a time of 24:49.9. Samantha Thompson finished tenth with a time of 26:09.8 and Haley Bush, 12th, ran at 27:30.1.

The Pirates and Bulldogs will participate in Mesquite this Saturday.

MVHS Tennis
The MVHS Tennis teams had great last week as they played 4 teams in five days. On Monday, Mar. 22, they played at Lake Mead Academy and both teams won by forfeit, and winning 12-0 in exhibition matches.

Freshman singles players Aiden Johnson and Braden Leavitt won their exhibition matches with scores of 6-0.

The Teams then took on Virgin Valley Wednesday, claiming victory for the Boys (17-1) and the Girls (15-3).

The very next day they played Meadows where they suffered losses with the Boys losing 6-12 and the Girls dropping the match 3-15.

On Friday, they played their final home match against Pahrump . The Pirates dominated the Trojans.

The boys won 17-1 with outstanding wins and play from senior and Co-Captain Kolby May, newcomer Aiden Johnson, as well as amazing play from Cole Neilson in doubles play.

The girls won as well, 16-3. Karli Keller won all three of her matches. Also playing extremely well was Senior Kayla Lyon who played singles where she actually usually plays doubles. She won her matches as well. Savannah Aikele also came away with two wins to add to the final score.

The tennis teams have two away matches left at Adelson on April 6 and then with rival Virgin Valley on April 7.

MVHS Volleyball
It was a slog of a week for the Pirate volleyball team as they played powerhouses Faith Lutheran and Bishop Gorman. The Pirates were overpowered and outplayed as they dropped both matches to the larger private schools programs.

“We struggled to get consistent passes to run our offense with their tough serving,” said MVHS Head Coach Mandie Matheson.

Moapa lost to Faith Lutheran 0-3 with scores 16-25, 15-25, and 16-25 on March 22. Then on Thursday, the team traveled to Bishop Gorman losing 1-3. Sydney Reese led the team with 12 kills.

“We played decently but got handled by Gorman during sets 1 and 2,” Matheson said. “The girls showed some tenacity and battled back in the 3rd set with strong serving and good defense. But Gorman’s deep supply of strong front line and solid back-row defense combined with powerful offensive weapons were more than we could handle and we fell again in the 4th set.”.

The MVHS Pirates have two more matches for the shortened season. They play SLAM on March 30 at home and travel to Pahrump on April 6 to end the season.