Del Sol stymied once again in title game

By Ray Brewer (contact)

Monday, Nov. 24, 2008 | 9:32 p.m.

Ray Brewer

Del Sol assistant football coach Don Morse knew the lead wasn't safe.

The Dragons seemed comfortably ahead of Las Vegas High midway through the fourth quarter on Friday in the Sunrise Regional championship game, but Morse wasn't ready to start celebrating.

The 14-point advantage wasn't enough, the coach warned. Unfortunately for Del Sol, Morse was right as history repeated itself.

Las Vegas scored 21 unanswered points in the game's final five minutes to rally for a 35-28 victory and its sixth straight regional crown.

Las Vegas has never lost to a team from the Henderson-based Southeast Division — including the past three title games against Del Sol — since Southern Nevada was split into two regions nine years ago.

The streak includes a loss that spurred Morse's uneasy pacing up and down the sideline last week.

Morse was flashing back to his days at Foothill, when Las Vegas rallied from a two-touchdown deficit in the fourth quarter of the 2001 regional title game to steal the crown.

Sound familiar?

"It was tough," Morse said of this year's contest. "It was just another nightmare for me against Las Vegas."

Morse's teams have lost to Las Vegas five times in the regional title game, two with Foothill and three at Del Sol. Teams the defensive line coach has worked with have averaged more than 10 wins per year since he moved to Henderson from Arizona in 1999. But they still haven't gotten past Las Vegas in the playoffs.

He is not the only one.

The Wildcats have captured seven of the region's nine titles — Eldorado won in 2000 with now-St. Louis Rams running back Steven Jackson, and Desert Pines rode Cornell Johnson to the title in 2002.

Las Vegas coach Chris Faircloth, who was an assistant with the Wildcats during the 2001 victory, said the two comebacks were similar. Running back Antoine White led the comeback seven years ago with a pair of late touchdowns, while quarterback Emir Lopez and running back Reggie Bullock sparked the comeback last week with fourth-quarter scoring runs.

"It was the same thing in 2001; everything had to fit perfectly for us to win," Faircloth said.

The 2001 win was the Wildcats' first regional title, but not the last time Las Vegas flexed its muscles against the Southeast. Henderson schools have come close to beating Las Vegas — Basic led in the fourth quarter of the Sunset quarterfinals in 2003, and Coronado lost 15-7 in the quarterfinals two years later — before falling apart late.

Del Sol proved beating Las Vegas isn't impossible, it's just not easy.

"We really wanted to represent the Southeast," said Del Sol coach Preston Goroff, who was also an assistant at Foothill in 2001.

Sports Editor Ray Brewer can be reached at ray.brewer@hbcpub.com or 990-2662.

Sports Editor Ray Brewer can be reached at 990-2662 or ray.brewer@hbcpub.com.