Wildcats derail Valley’s title march

Nick Christensen

Friday, Oct. 29, 2004 | 10:26 a.m.

Marcus Cotton plodded, pleaded and yelled. He paced the sideline when his team was on offense, and stalked Southern Nevada's leading rusher, Las Vegas' Eric Jordan, in a fourth-quarter stand that almost kept the Vikings in contention.

Last week, Valley and its emotional linebacker Cotton overcame a lack of experience in big games to upset Eldorado and take the lead in the chase for the Northeast Division title. This week, not even Cotton's imploring his teammates could overcome Las Vegas, which rang up a 21-3 victory and caused a three-way tie among Valley, Vegas and Eldorado for first place in the division. Las Vegas will enter the playoffs for the second consecutive year as the division's top seed because of tiebreakers.

With a young team led by Jordan, and having just gone undefeated up to their loss in the state championship, first-year coach Chris Faircloth's Wildcats were expected to roll through their schedule.

But a September loss to Cheyenne, followed two weeks later with a homecoming defeat to Eldorado, put a dark cloud over Sunrise Mountain.

Redemption was in Vegas' control after Valley beat Eldorado last week. And the experience of playing under pressure proved to be the difference on Thursday night. Seemingly every time momentum shifted in the Wildcats' favor, Valley's offense sputtered when it needed to respond.

When a 17-yard pass to David Sosa that put the Vikings on the Vegas 8 in the third quarter was called back due to an ineligible man downfield, Valley's drive stalled on three incomplete passes. When Vegas went up 13-3, Valley sputtered again with two incompletions and two false-start penalties.

"They came and got us," Valley coach Jim Massey said. "There was no execution. They played a good football game. They came after us and we didn't respond."

Valley's Matthew Christman ended up 16-for-34 with one interception, but threw for just 50 of his 174 total yards in the second half.

The Las Vegas defense was stifling on the ground, limiting Valley to just 61 rushing yards.

The game would have been a shutout, except Valley's Randy Perez hit a 43-yard field goal in the second quarter to give the Vikings their only lead of the game. After that, it was Eric Jordan time.

Jordan led Vegas on a seven-play, 70-yard drive to go up 7-3 late in the first half. Then, Jordan carried his team 31 yards on seven plays early in the fourth quarter before quarterback O'Ryan Bradley hit Christian Vidal for his only catch of the night, a 34-yard touchdown strike to go up 13-3.

Needing to win by 12 points to clinch the division title, the Wildcats lined up for a two point conversion. But they took too long, and Bradley was forced to attempt the two-point conversion from 7 yards back after a delay of game call. The attempt was unsuccessful.

The fourth quarter became the battle of Cotton and Jordan. Seemingly every time Jordan was given the ball, Cotton was there to try to stop him. It was working, with Jordan compiling only nine rushing yards on Vegas' 11-play, 69-yard final drive. Jordan, a junior, ended the game with 161 yards and finished the year with 1,937 rushing yards on 250 carries.

But nobody would stop Jordan on his final play, a 17-yard touchdown run with 1:35 to go. After a successful two-point conversion, Las Vegas had a 21-3 lead and Faircloth, an assistant in predecessor Kris Cinkovich's tenure, had his first division title.

"I don't want to say these kids work harder than anyone else in town, but they've worked their butts off every week," Faircloth said. "We took our opponent lightly last year in the first round, and we were fortunate to win the game. I don't think the kids will overlook anybody this year."