Nevada Preps awards — Game of the Year
As fans flooded Freedom Field, Liberty offensive lineman AJ Maluia laid there with tears streaming down his face.
He and his teammates had just done something no team in Nevada had done in more than a decade — beat Bishop Gorman — and they made sure to soak in the moment.
“The feeling was amazing. The whole time I was just praying to God to get this win,” Maluia said. “I had cousins go through Liberty that couldn’t accomplish beating Gorman. So finally getting that done was amazing.”
The Patriots rallied from a 14-point halftime deficit and only led once in the game. But that was when Zyrus Fiaseu ran into the end zone from 7 yards out in overtime to make it a 30-24 final and end the Gaels’ 115-game winning streak against in-state teams.
Liberty went on to win its first state championship by beating Centennial 50-7 two weeks later,,but it was the game against Gorman that will go down in history. That’s why it’s the Review-Journal’s Nevada Preps Game of the Year.
Gorman got the ball first in overtime at the Liberty 10-yard line, but missed a 24-yard field goal, giving Liberty a clear path to victory.
“As soon as they missed the field goal, I thought we had won the game because I have that much confidence in my kicker,” Liberty coach Rich Muraco said. “The thing I was the most nervous about was turning the ball over. (On second down), I thought I’d run one more play and kick on third down in case something were to go wrong. Zyrus was like, ‘Give me the ball.’ I said, ‘All right, I’m giving it to you.’”
The offensive line created a massive hole on the right side, and Fiaseu waltzed in untouched, setting off a massive celebration.
Liberty had faced Gorman seven other times in the playoffs since 2011, three state championship games and four semifinals. The Gaels had outscored the Patriots 392-114 in those contests, including an 84-8 win in the 2016 state championship game.
Unlike those games, which had all been played at Gorman or a neutral site, this one was on Liberty’s home field. But early on, it appeared the game might follow the same script, which had Gorman jumping all over Liberty early and never letting up.
“They got the ball and went down and scored, and I’m like, ‘Oh, man, here we go,’” Muraco said.
And it was the combination that Muraco feared that gave the Gaels the early lead. Quarterback Micah Bowens connected with Rome Odunze for a 45-yard touchdown less than a minute and a half into the game.
But the Liberty defense reacted positively to the challenge and limited the Gaels to 10 points the rest of the half — a 25-yard Dylan Hamika field goal and a 44-yard touchdown pass from Bowens to Cam Kade Hunterton. The Liberty offense was moving the ball but couldn’t finish drives, and the Patriots went into the locker room trailing 17-3.
Despite the deficit and past history against Gorman, Liberty didn’t think it was out of the game. Captains Maluia and Fiaseu made sure their teammates knew it with speeches that calmed a frantic locker room.
“AJ and Zyrus took the initiative and said, ‘This time we flip it around,’” Liberty tight end Moliki Matavao said. “Instead of taking home the ‘L,’ we’re going to take home the ‘W.’ We’re ready for this, and they are not better than us.”
Fiaseu scored on a 3-yard run to make it 17-10, then quarterback Daniel Britt connected with Germie Bernard on a 17-yard touchdown pass to tie the score at 17 with 2:10 left in the third quarter.
Gorman responded with a 90-yard drive capped by a 3-yard Micah Bowens touchdown run, but Liberty answered again on Britt’s 5-yard scramble with 3:33 left in regulation.
The Gaels drove one more time but stalled, and Liberty knelt out the clock to take it to overtime, setting up Fiaseu’s heroics.
“The play was running to my (the right) side,” Maluia said. “We pushed that wall, and it just opened up. I don’t know how, but I tripped over somebody and turned around to see Zyrus cross the goal line. I was laying there bawling tears because a game like this is very emotional. My brother was pulled up to varsity, too, and he was getting me up and congratulating me.
“It was a surreal moment. I never thought my brother would be the first one to get to me because everybody flooded the field. Being a senior, that was the last game I ever played on that field and finishing with that type of accomplishment is special.”
Contact Jason Orts at jorts@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2936. Follow @SportsWithOrts on Twitter.
