By BOB SNELL
The Progress
As soon as the time reached 0:00 on the clock following Virgin Valley’s 52-0 Homecoming victory over Western of Las Vegas Friday night inside Evan Wilson Stadium, the focus immediately turned to the Rivalry Game.
No more looking ahead or checking the results of their rivals. The time is now at hand.
The Bulldogs, 7-1 overall and 3-0 league, will travel to Overton this Friday to face Moapa Valley, 8-0 overall and 3-0 league, at 7 p.m. inside Jeff Keel Stadium. Nevada’s oldest high school rivalry will decide the 3A South Mountain League championship as well as the No. 1 overall seed for the upcoming playoffs.
Yeah, it’s that big!
“It’s always a fun game whenever we play Moapa,” VVHS head coach Matt Woods said. “The stands are packed. The intensity level is high. It doesn’t get any better at this level of football.”
With so much riding on the game, the Bulldogs realize they will have their work cut out for them against a powerful Pirate squad.
“Moapa is a tough football team,” Woods said. “They’ve got really good athletes on both sides of the ball. We’re going to have to play really well if we want to beat them. We must be disciplined and not make mistakes.”
Against Western, the Bulldogs scored on their first three possessions to lead 21-0 after one quarter of play.
Quarterback Gavin Brown scored on a 12-yard keeper to open the scoring for Virgin Valley and Edgar Perez followed by booting the first of his six points after touchdowns.
Brown, who completed 13 of 18 passes for 185 yards and five touchdowns – all in the first half, threw TD passes of 24 yards to Benson Leavitt, 13 yards to Cam Perkins and 18 and three yards to Jimmy Kelly, giving the Bulldogs a 34-0 advantage with 4:42 left in the first half.
After Jacob Nelson recovered a Western fumble on the Warriors’ four-yard line, Brown found Jared Jensen open for a touchdown with five seconds remaining to give Virgin Valley a 41-0 lead at the half.
“It was good to see us go out and execute and cut down on penalties,” Woods said. “We wanted to jump on them early and give them no chance to come back.”
Jaxon Baird scored on a five-yard run and sacked the Western quarterback for a safety in the third quarter. The Bulldogs added another safety when a bad snap went over the Western punter’s head and out of the end zone.
“We were able to get kids a lot of playing time,” Woods said. “Everyone got to play and we didn’t have anyone get hurt.”
Even though Moapa Valley will be favored and playing at home in Friday night’s contest, the Bulldogs plan to show up and be ready.
“We’re not going down there to lose,” Woods said. “We’re going down to try and win a league championship. It should be a good game.”
