Hubert, Moapa Valley breeze past Elko, gain I-A title berth

R.J. Hubert isn’t the Moapa Valley football team’s leading receiver. But the junior certainly was the most dangerous player on the field Saturday.

Hubert hauled in five passes for 138 yards and two touchdowns to help the Pirates to a 40-7 home victory over Elko in the Division I-A state semifinals.

Moapa Valley (12-0) plays Desert Pines (11-1) in the state final at 3 p.m. Saturday at Bishop Gorman High School.

“He is a Division I athlete,” Moapa Valley coach Brent Lewis said of Hubert, who also intercepted a pass and had a tackle for loss. “And if the college coaches don’t take notice, they’re crazy.”

Hubert made TD catches of 5 and 4 yards to help the Pirates to a 21-0 halftime lead. But neither of those catches was his most impressive. The Pirates faced third-and-3 from their 15-yard line with 21.6 seconds left in the first half.

Moapa Valley took one shot, and Zach Hymas lofted a deep ball down the middle for Hubert, who outran the coverage and caught the ball near midfield. He raced for the left corner of the end zone but was pushed out of bounds at the 5 by Elko’s Adam Bullock with 10.5 seconds left.

Two plays later, Hubert made a leaping catch for a 4-yard TD and a 21-0 lead.

“R.J.’s a huge weapon,” Hymas said. “We have weapons all over the place. We can get the ball wherever. R.J. has been burning coverages and stuff, but we have so many weapons and we can go to every one of them.”

Hubert had another big catch in the second half, adjusting to an underthrown ball and making a leaping grab at the 2 for a 29-yard gain. Two plays later, Hymas hit Jay Mortensen with a 4-yard TD pass that put the Pirates ahead 27-0 with 1:19 left in the third quarter.

Hymas was 16 of 21 passing for 243 yards and three touchdowns. He completed nine of his first 10 passes, including 4-for-4 for 39 yards on the game’s first drive, which was capped by a 5-yard TD run by Kaleb Bodily.

After going 56 yards on 11 plays on the first drive, the Pirates took nine plays to go 56 yards the second time they touched the ball, this time capped by Hymas’ first TD pass to Hubert.

Bodily added a 17-yard TD run with 11:18 to play, and Cole Mulcock scored on a 14-yard run with 7:03 left to close the scoring.

The defense was just as impressive, yielding 89 yards to Elko (9-2).

■ Desert Pines 16, Churchill County 0 — At Fallon, Marckell Grayson passed for 219 yards and one touchdown and ran for another as the Jaguars beat the Greenwave (10-2) in the other semifinal.

Desert Pines came up with two huge defensive stops in the first half. The first came on fourth-and-goal from the Desert Pines 3 when the Jaguars stuffed Churchill County receiver Connor Richardson at the 1.

On the Greenwave’s next possession, Vasaifanua Hansell picked off a Joe Pyle pass and returned it to the 21. Nathan Heck nearly intercepted a Grayson pass on that drive but couldn’t hang on. Three plays later, Grayson avoided a sack and dumped a pass to running back Isaiah Morris for a 15-yard TD.

Grayson, who completed 18 of 28 passes, added a 7-yard TD run late in the fourth quarter.

DIVISION III

The Meadows’ defense appeared to make one crucial mistake on its second play on the field.

The Mustangs spent the rest of the day showing how good they can be.

Burned for a long touchdown run in the first quarter, The Meadows shut down a high-powered Pershing County offense on its way to a 20-6 home win in a Division III state semifinal.

The Meadows (10-2) will face Yerington (8-2) for the state championship at noon Saturday at Bishop Gorman. Yerington was a 42-6 winner over Agassi Prep on Saturday.

“Our defense was just outstanding,” The Meadows coach Frank DeSantis said. “Our line, I wish I could just name all of them, they were great. We keep getting better.”

After The Meadows orchestrated a 16-play, 60-yard touchdown drive that chewed up the opening 9 minutes, 15 seconds, Pershing County needed only two plays for Marquis McKinney to run 65 yards around the right end to tie the game 6-6.

“After that everybody knew they had to step it up,” said The Meadows senior lineman Mark Woodson, who had two tackles for loss and a quarterback hurry. “If one person messes up, then the whole team loses that play. Everybody did their job.”

Pershing County, which averaged 289.1 rushing yards per game in its first 10 games, had 23 carries for 56 yards, including 11 for negative yards.

Pershing County (9-3) had 112 total yards on 37 offensive plays and didn’t have a possession that lasted longer than five plays.

DIVISION IV

Cory Duncan made a 33-yard touchdown run and returned an interception 49 yards for a score to help Spring Mountain breeze to a 54-12 win over host Virginia City (9-2) in a Division IV state semifinal.

Edward London tossed a 1-yard TD pass and ran 1 yard for a score for the Golden Eagles, who led 36-6 at halftime. Spring Mountain (9-2) will face Pahranagat Valley (11-0) in the state title game at 6 p.m. Friday at The Meadows.

Isaiah Sarmoines caught London’s touchdown pass, and Nick Meyers, Jarron Belvin and Tre-vion Glover added touchdown runs for Spring Mountain. Chris Elliott had a 51-yard interception return for a TD for the Golden Eagles.