Robert Perea
Fallon held a 21-14 lead, and Moapa Valley was facing 4th-and-goal at the Fallon 1-yard line. Moapa Valley running back Briggs Hickman, a junior who had run for more than 1,200 yards this season and was well over 100 yards in the game, had carried the ball seven times for 36 yards on a drive that began at the Moapa Valley 7-yard line. But Connors didn’t believe the Pirates were going to give the ball to Hickman again, so he wanted to relay that information to Richardson.
Connors’ hunch was correct, and a forewarned Richardson made the play that sealed the win.
Moapa Valley Kamden Drosos lofted a pass into the end zone well short of his intended target, Ryker Katich. Richardson leaped to make the interception, and the Greenwave were able to run out the clock as 3A State champions.
“Coach Connors is the one who told me to watch the tight end release, so I listened to him, trusted my coaches,” Richardson said. “The quarterback, he just looked straight up and threw it. I read his eyes and picked the ball. I’ve been in a lot of big games, so it’s just in my blood, I guess.”
The championship is the ninth in school history. And Richardson said he’s been dreaming of winning the state title since watching his cousins, Connor and Brock, win them in 2015 and 2018, respectively.
“It means a lot because my cousins have been in the other ones, so it just feels good to be in with them,” Maxton Richardson said. “Every day they tell me I’ve got to get tone of my own. Now we got it.”
Carson Melendy led the Greenwave Saturday with 174 yards and two touchdowns on 17 carries to help make his own childhood dream come true.
“I remember watching Tommy and Sean McCormick, and the Richardsons, when I was like six or seven years old,” Melendy said. “I’ve always wanted to be in one of these state championship games, and now I’m finally here, and we won it.”
Melendy’s second touchdown, a 6-yard run, came on the first play of the fourth quarter and put Fallon up 21-14. Later in the quarter, the Greenwave were threatening to take a two-score lead. The coaches called for a trick play, a halfback option pass. But Melendy’s throw was intercepted by Moapa Valley’s Stetson Houston at the 7-yard line, setting up the Pirates’ final drive.
“Essentially not the greatest play call in the entire world, but we as a staff felt confident in it, the kids felt confident in it,” Connors said. “We run it at practice all the time, and it just didn’t happen for us on that play. But our defense, they’ve been our heart and soul this whole year, and they came up when it mattered.”
The Fallon defense came through time and again on Saturday. Barry Mitchell intercepted a pass by Drosos that ended Moapa Valley’s first possession of the second half, and the Pirates were forced to punt on their other two second-half possessions.
In the first half, Moapa Valley took the opening kickoff and drove as far as the Fallon 13 before Fallon’s defense pushed them back, and the Pirates had to settle for a 47-yard field goal to take a 3-0 lead.
With Fallon leading 7-3, the Pirates again marched to the Fallon 16 before the Greenwave forced a turnover on downs. Then, on the third Moapa Valley possession, Fallon forced another field goal after the Pirates drove to the Fallon 9.
“We had a couple of penalties in the red zone that stalled out our drives a little bit,” Moapa Valley coach Brent Lewis said. “We should have probably had at least 28 points on the board, but just shot ourselves in the foot a little there.”
After the Pirates opened the scoring with the first field goal, the Greenwave answered with an 80-yard drive in seven plays to take the lead on a 10-yard touchdown run by Camden Richardson.
Moapa Valley’s second field goal made it 7-6 with 4:18 left in the first half. Fallon struck right back with another seven-play drive, this one 69 yards, and went up 14-6 on a 1-yard touchdown by Melendy with 1:28 left in the first half.
The Pirates tied the game with 9 seconds left in the half, driving 70 yards in 1:19, scoring on a 6-yard pass from Drosos to Hickman, where Hickman broke two tackles inside the 5-yard line, followed by a 2-point conversion.
From there, the Fallon defense made sure the Pirates didn’t score again, and the Greenwave earned a ride home with an escort of police and fire trucks leading them back into town.
“That’s the pinnacle. It’s the top of the mountaintop, and that’s what you strive for each and every time,” Connors said. “We talk about it all the time, just being able to come together as a team, manage the highs and lows. We can’t control the refs or the weather, but we can control attitude, effort, and passion for this game, and they buy into it, although it’s corny. Those things stick with them mentally, and it’s really the foundation of our program.”
Comment
Comments