Mojave takes down Losee for 4A Desert title — PHOTOS
After a grueling nine-week football schedule, the battle for the Class 4A Desert League came down to the regular season’s final game.
AJ Williams helped make sure Mojave got the league title and a bye through the first round of the playoffs.
The senior threw touchdown passes on his only two attempts and caught another score to help the Rattlers, No. 2 in the Review-Journal’s 4A rankings, earn a 32-21 road win over No. 1 Losee on Thursday.
Mojave (9-1, 6-0) will have a bye to the 4A Desert semifinals Nov. 8. Losee (8-2, 5-1) will host a quarterfinal next week.
Rattlers coach Wes Pacheco said his team had been pointing toward this game.
“We knew coming into this season they were the villains to our hero story, but we’ve done everything in terms of weights and conditioning and pushing them to their limit with the intention of winning these games,” he said.
Losee started the game in control. On the Lions’ first drive, their biggest offensive threat, junior Kieran Daniel, scored on a 6-yard run to give Losee a 7-0 lead.
Mojave’s defense, which has six shutouts this season, seemed to settle down on the next possession as senior Ja’Laun Miller forced a fumble that was recovered by the Rattlers.
Mojave then scored on four consecutive drives, starting with a 57-yard touchdown to senior Peyton Parnell from Williams to cut Losee’s lead to 7-6 following a failed 2-point conversion.
Williams, who spent most of the game lined up at receiver, later hit senior Miguel Reinares for a 42-yard touchdown to push the lead to 26-7. Williams finished 2-for-2 for 99 yards and the two scores.
Williams also hauled in a 24-yard touchdown in the second quarter to put Mojave up 14-7.
Mojave’s defense secured two interceptions and gave up less than 150 yards of offense in the second half.
As the top seed, Mojave will now get a much-deserved rest week that Pacheco says the team will take full advantage of.
“We haven’t had a bye week all season,” he said. “We went through a grinder of schedule, but (the bye week) allows us to do team bonding and recenter us a little bit.”