Saturday, August 28, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

JOE HAWK: Wildcats sweat out opening win

There was Mark Taylor's blocked punt that set up a score and his recovery of a fumble just outside the end zone for a safety.

There was Anthony Chavez tipping a pass, Xavaier Cleveland recovering a fumble, Jeremy Craddock causing a fumble and recording a sack, and Jamal Lomax dropping the opposing quarterback twice.

There was Las Vegas High School's defense keeping visiting Pine View (Utah) off the scoreboard and holding the Panthers to 19 total yards in the first half.

There were the Wildcats, playing their first game of the season, leading the St. George-based team, with one game and one victory already in pocket, by a 22-0 margin at intermission.

So how was it then that Las Vegas had to sweat out two poised, yet desperate, Pine View pass attempts inside the final 3.5 seconds Friday night to survive a 34-28 victory?

"They figured out our strategy a little bit," said Taylor, a senior lineman whom first-year Las Vegas coach Chris Faircloth calls "the heart of our defense." "(Defending) the passing game just isn't our game. We got a little bit tired, and they picked on us until the end, when we picked it up."

Consider, the Wildcats, who finished 13-1 last season after losing to Reno 26-23 in the Class 4A state championship game, were so dominant defensively over the first 24 minutes that this contest had "runaway" stamped all over it.

Not only did Taylor and Co. hold the Panthers to 19 offensive yards in the opening half, the Wildcats successfully pushed Pine View back on its final three possessions before halftime -- a loss of 32 yards.

But that was because Pine View was trying to establish the run behind its dynamo back, Carson Seegmiller, who had 366 all-purpose yards in a 56-7 victory over Lehi (Utah) a week earlier. Once the Panthers decided to test Faircloth's secondary, they found the Wildcats' weakness.

Boy, did they.

Pine View quarterback James Lark threw for 233 yards and three touchdowns -- a fourth score was set up by a 15-yard pass to the 1-yard line -- as the Panthers rallied in the second half.

Faircloth should have known his team was in trouble when, after a 65-yard screen pass to open the half got the Panthers to the Las Vegas 10, no one -- NO ONE -- was in position to cover Pine View wideout Jon Paul on the next play. Paul gently backpedaled into the end zone as Lark lofted a short pass.

"We started fatiguing, and it got really bad," said Faircloth, the team's one-time defensive coordinator who took over as Las Vegas head coach when Kris Cinkovich left to take an assistant's position at UNLV during the offseason. "We couldn't even take instructions after a while.

"We're very, very fortunate to come away with this one."

Make that very, very, veeeeeery fortunate.

Pine View had two "last" chances to win when standout Wildcats running back Eric Jordan fumbled at the Las Vegas 40 with 3.5 seconds to play. Not exactly something you would expect from a guy who has rushed for 270 yards and four touchdowns, including one for 80 yards, but that's just the way the second half was going for Las Vegas.

If the surprising fumble wasn't enough to make Faircloth believe things were completely unraveling, there was a pass interference penalty called against the Wildcats on Lark's first try into the end zone.

"Our gut feeling was, we're in trouble now," Faircloth said. "We gave them a second chance."

From 25 yards, not 40.

It would be a great ending to this season-opening story had Las Vegas' defense stepped up with a herculean play on Lark's second steady, if stiff, pass into the end zone. As it was, Lark simply overthrew receiver Devin Graff.

No exemplary defensive play, no punctuation mark to place at this tale's end.

"We just had to stick in there and keep our heads high," said Lomax, a junior defensive back who gets the most out of his 5-foot-7-inch stature. "We knew we could do it as long as we sucked it up."

The Wildcats did. Barely.

This night, barely was good enough.

Barely.

Joe Hawk's column is published Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. He can be reached at 387-2912 or jhawk@reviewjournal.com.