Fielder’s choices: Desert Pines-Green Valley should be close

You might have noticed there are 11 teams in Southern Nevada’s Class 5A. This means there are five games each week after league play begins, and the one leftover team receives this thing called a bye.

If you are wondering how this silly little word originated, it started around 1840, which is even a little before the Rolling Stones were born. The people who write dictionaries say it started off as “by,” as in standing by or being bypassed when everybody else was playing this game called cricket.

Supposedly there also was this sport called coursing, where dogs would run after something they could see instead of smell. A dog that did not have another dog to run against would run by himself. And so this also was called a bye, because that’s what they already called it in cricket games.

Anyway, Faith Lutheran has the bye this week. And if the Crusaders are interested in how it all started, there you have it.

Green Valley at Desert Pines

Green Valley did not play a league game last week. But it did not have a bye. It played the Henderson Bowl, which in some ways is bigger than a league game for the Gators, who defeated their rival Basic 46-21. Desert Pines also scored a lot of points — 62 against Centennial. And Centennial didn’t score any points against Desert Pines. Green Valley and Desert Pines might score a lot of points against each other, but Desert Pines should score a few more. Desert Pines by 3.

Legacy at Foothill

Speaking of points, Legacy finally scored some and beat Canyon Springs 18-15 on Saturday. Legacy scored only eight, eight and seven points in its first three games and might have trouble reaching double figures against Foothill, which defeated Palo Verde 42-20 in what some people around here were calling an upset. No upset this week. Foothill by 10.

Palo Verde at Arbor View

Like the two games mentioned above, this one might be interesting, even though Arbor View got shut out 52-0 by Bishop Gorman last week. Matt Gerber, the Arbor View coach, said his team did absolutely nothing in that game, and so you move on. Those were his exact words. My exact words are that Arbor View will win this week’s game by about a touchdown. Arbor View by 7.

Canyon Springs at Bishop Gorman

This game, on the other hand, does not inspire interest. As I mentioned above, Bishop Gorman scored 52 points against Arbor View, which is a pretty good team for around here. They even let the clock run in the second half so everybody got to go home earlier because Gorman still plays games at 7 p.m. when everybody else plays at 6. Bishop Gorman by 53.

Centennial at Liberty

This game is a rematch of the last state championship game in 2019 before COVID started messing everything up. Liberty won 50-7. COVID is still messing with both of these teams, but Liberty’s junior varsity, most of which got called up to play against Faith Lutheran last week, is pretty good, too. Liberty by 42.

Season predictions: 16-8

Against the spread: 12-12

Fielder is a Review-Journal correspondent during the high school sports season when he isn’t slacking off. He currently cannot be reached because his cellphone fell out of his pocket while he was skateboarding and the screen broke.