The Bulldog defense stepped up, for the second week in a row, insuring a 26-24 Bulldog victory. ( photo is from a previous game )
By Lou Martin

The Virgin Valley High School Bulldogs defense had to step up for the second week in a row to stop an opposing team to keep the Dawgs undefeated in 2018. The Dawgs defense came up big on a two point conversion attempt by the Pahrump High School Trojans late in the game giving the Dawgs a hard earned 26-24 victory.

As in last week’s game, the Dawgs started strong scoring in the first quarter to take an early 6-0 lead. Tailback Wyatt Delano finished a long drive going in from 7 yards out. The Dawgs increased their lead to 12-0 in the second period on a 39 yard Mebs Hollingshead pass to David Carson. The dawgs continued to roll in the period adding another T.D. pass from Hollingshead to Will Barnum. The two point conversion was good on a pass from Hollingshead to Lane Ramos making the score 20-0.  The Trojans cut the Dawgs lead to 20-6 on an 18 yard run from Trojan senior running back Nico Velasquez, his first of three touchdown runs. The first half finished with the Dawgs up 20-6. The Dawgs vaunted running game was shut down by the tough 7 man front of the Trojans forcing the Dawgs to the air. Also, running back Tanner Fielding was injured in last week’s win over Clark.  Q.B. Mebs Hollingshead had to go with his passing game and responded with 258 yards on 15 of 22 pass attempts.

The Trojans Velasquez scored early in the third quarter cutting the Dawgs lead to 20-12. The Dawgs responded on a Delano rush up the middle keeping the Dawgs up 28-12 going into the fourth period. Penalties on the Dawgs kept them off their game most of the second half. The fourth period was all Trojans as they battled back to cut the Dawgs lead to 28-26 late in the game. The Bulldogs defense stuffed the Trojans two point attempt insuring a Bulldog victory. ” We need to clean up our play and reduce the number of penalties,” said Bulldog coach Matt Woods. “We won’t beat the good teams unless we are more disciplined. “ The Dawgs were hit for 176 yards in penalties to 29 yards for the Trojans. Leading the stats for the Dawgs were David Carson with 5 catches for 77 yards and a T.D. Delano had 50 yards on the ground and two touchdowns. Hollingshead led the Dawgs rushing attack with 60 yards. Rudy Cannon and Jake Hampsten led the defense with 5 and 7 tackles respectively.  Ramos led the defense with 1.5 sacks. The Dawgs face a quick Del Sol Dragon squad next week in the Dawg Pound.